























LOST RIVER 

OR THE ADVENTURES OF TWO BOYS IN 
THE BIG WOODS 













































































The little craft was already whirling madly 
through the rapids.” — Page 112 








LOST RIVER 

OR THE ADVENTURES OF TWO BOYS 
IN THE BIG WOODS 


BY 

ALLEN CHAFFEE 

AUTHOR OF THE “ADVENTURES OF TWINKLY 
EYES, THE LITTLE BLACK BEAR,” AND 
“ADVENTURES OF TRAIL AND 
TREE-TOP” 


ILLUSTRATED BY 

PETER DA RU 


MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY 

SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS 

1920 


Copyright, 1920, by 
MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY 


All .rights ■ reserved 


©Cl. A576012 



Bradley Quality Books 

Jor Children 


MYRIAM SIEVE 


THE COMRADE OF MANY A TRAIL 







s 


INTRODUCTION 


Separated from their camp-canoe party, a Boy 
Scout and a backwoods boy get lost in the wild 
lands of Maine, and have to find their way through 
100 miles of untracked and all but impenetrable 
forest, with little save their knowledge of wood¬ 
craft to aid them in the struggle for food and shelter 
and a means of transportation. 

They meet with various adventures and witness 
some unusual aspects of wild animal life; but 
thanks to the inexhaustible high spirits of the early 
teens, they come through not alone with a new 
source of enjoyment, but with a career opened to 
them. 

It is a story written first of all to entertain. But 
from it a boy may learn much that will help to make 
a vacation in the woods enjoyable, besides which it 
is our hope that he may receive a stimulus to know 
more of the natural sciences herein touched upon. 

Thanks are due to Mr. Da Ru for suggestions 
offered from his own extensive knowledge of wood¬ 
craft and wild animal life, several of the adventures 
related having been his personal experiences. 

The Author. 


0 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTEB 

I. — Lost. 

The sport camp. The raspberry bog. A night 
in the open. Lost! Indian turnips and Chan- 
tarelles. The bull moose. 

II. — The Battle of the Elements . 

Ralph learns to climb. A net of rootlets. Trap¬ 
ping fish. Wild herbs. Boiling water in birch 
bark. A salt substitute. The storm. 

III. — A Strange Peril. 

Shelter from lightning. Voices of the night. 
Reading foot-prints. Telling directions by the 
stars. A strange breakfast. Fighting punkies. 
The lynx kittens, — and their mother. Over the 
precipice. 

IV. — The Raft. 

The bark rope. The rescue. Baked porcupine. 
The ridge trail. Bark leggins. Quenching thirst. 
Lost in the fog. Grouse and squirrel. The three- 
log raft. A bad accident. 

V. — “Good Injun.”. 

First aid. A blanketless bed. Warming the 
ground. A better raft. Lost River. Snaring a 
rabbit. Down-stream. A new use for shoe 
leather. The Moose Bird. Tenderfoot troubles. 
The camp in the rocks. The weird laughter. 

VI. — Loon Pond. 

The loon family. An inland pond. A bold un¬ 
dertaking. Duck eggs. Feathered huntsmen, 
vii 


PAGE 

1 


14 


26 


38 


48 


62 





viii 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

Otters at play. Laying in supplies. The king¬ 
fisher. The mystery of the mudbank. A dry 
spot for a rainy day. Tim’s “ghost.” 

VII. — The Baby ’Coon .76 

Jack-o’-lanterns. The ’coon tree. The young 
raccoons. The capture. A new pet. The foot¬ 
prints. 

VIII. — Wild Mushrooms.89 

The panther’s cry. Bows and arrows. Poison 
Cups. Red Tops. Red Pepper. Pore mush¬ 
rooms. Oyster mushrooms. On the pass. The 
panther’s cave. 

IX. — Panther and Wolverine .101 

The panther’s prey. A test of nerve. The wol¬ 
verine. A battle royal. Beech slab notes. The 
musk-rat skin. A wrenched ankle. The rapids. 

X. — Midsummer Madness .113 

A forced delay. Friends in fur and feathers. 
Spearing fish. The flying-squirrel. A ventrilo¬ 
quist. Jacking for deer. Mischievous bunnies. 

Lotor and the weasel. The forest fire. 

XI. — Fighting Fire .124 

A patriotic resolve. The fire trench* Back¬ 
firing. A deadly peril. The victory. A sad 
breakfast. An unexpected gain. Lotor again. 

The blazed trail. A new worry. 

XII. — The Blazed Trail .135 

The old trapping-line. Winter plans. The hem¬ 
lock lean-to. Life on Venus. An unwelcome 
visitor. The little ’coon’s pranks. The go-light 
outfit. The bee tree. 

XIII. — Treasure-Trove .146 

Extracting bee stings. Wild honey. A new plan. 
Puffballs. The logomaran. Beefsteak fungus. 
Morels. Ralph’s gratitude. A human prowler. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

XIV. — The Ranger’s Story. 

The forest officer. Circumstantial evidence. 
Drafted into service. The log cabin. The way 
of the wolverine. Foot wisdom. A new out¬ 
look. Adventures of a ranger. By long distance. 
Tim’s good fortune. 


ix 

PAGE 

159 


I 


LOST RIVER 

OR 

THE ADVENTURES OF TWO BOYS IN 
THE BIG WOODS 

CHAPTER I 
Lost! 

It was within two hours of a July sunset when a 
thin, freckled lad of thirteen dropped his ax and 
listened with his ear to the ground. 

Some one was coming along the trail. A mo¬ 
ment more and a stout boy of perhaps fifteen wear¬ 
ing the Boy Scout uniform and carrying a shiny 
bamboo rod appeared, beaming like the new moon. 

“H'lo, Ralph, what luck?” asked the back- 
woods boy. 

“ Hello, there, Tim.” The newcomer tried hard 
to appear indifferent as he emptied his bursting 
creel. “Think thatTl do for supper?” as Tim 
sprang to gather up the speckled beauties. 

“You bet!” and Tim's eyes looked their admira¬ 
tion. “You're doin' better 'n' better every day.” 

“Found a stretch of milky water below some 
big rocks at the bend,” tendered the city boy 

l 


2 


LOST RIVER 


modestly. “And I know where there's just mil¬ 
lions of great, big, ripe raspberries." 

“Where?" Tim was on his feet in an instant. 

“Back there in the swamp." 

“Say, when do you reckon the folks be back?" 

“Never mind, come on! It won't take us long 
to pick our hats full," urged Ralph. 

“Well, I did want to look around for another 
good pine knot," yielded Tim, grabbing up his 16- 
inch belt ax. 

He glanced back proudly at the camp layout 
that he had been left to complete for the night. 
Two cedar canoes lay bottom up on the tiny beach. 
Facing each other, with the night wood piled be¬ 
tween, stood two Baker tents with air mattresses 
for four, all blown up and spread with army 
blankets. Across one end of the rectangle thus 
marked off stood the cook lean-to, with nested 
aluminum pots and dishes and tent-silk food bags 
nicely arranged on a folding canvas table for the 
evening meal. For Tim's father was guiding a 
party of “sports," as the natives term well-to-do 
vacationists. 

Mr. Merritt had started on the expedition with 
his son Ralph and two other city boys, but no 
sooner had they actually set foot in their canoes 
at Moosehead Lake, than a telegram had called 
him to Washington on business. But so bitterly 
disappointed were the three boys that he had finally 
intrusted them to the guide, Pern Crawford, whose 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 


3 


son Tim would take the extra place provided by 
their rather heavy outfit, and help on the “carries.” 
They had been out now for a week, having gone 
nearly to the Canadian border on Dead River, 
hindered considerably by having had to make two 
trips at each carry; and they were just debating 
how to get the duffel over to Moose River for the 
return trip. 

The two boys started north along a narrow path 
worn hard by the passing of many moccasins. Just 
as they were turning off to the right, they saw a 
fleck of red against the green of the surrounding 
forest. A great 20-foot canoe appeared walking 
along on two pairs of overalls, and from beneath it 
peered two bronzed faces with eyes expressionless 
as black almonds. 

“You camp next place there?” the foremost 
Indian grunted. 

“Yes, but there's plenty of room for another 
party,” said Ralph cordially. Then he turned 
off into the raspberry tangle that lay at their right. 

Such luscious berries he had never tasted in all 
his life. Indeed, both boys did so much tasting 
that the sun had begun to redden behind the hills 
before their hats were filled. But what an im¬ 
penetrable tangle of thorny vines they had to worm 
their way through! 

“Say, how come you to be carrying that 
blanket?” suddenly asked Tim, eyeing Ralph's 
pack-strap. 


4 


LOST RIVER 


“Oh, they were going to take pictures this morn¬ 
ing, up on the ridge, and I wanted to look the part. 
It only weighs three pounds. I’d honestly for¬ 
gotten I had it on my back. — Ouch! . . . How 
in the world did we ever get into this in the first 
place ?” Ralph groaned, as every way he turned 
he found himself caught fast on the briars. 

“Blessed if I know. — Come on, quick,” urged 
Tim, whose clothing was already frayed till it did 
not matter. “Pap’ll sure take it out of me, if 
I’m not there to cook supper.” 

But struggle as they would, they seemed to come 
no nearer the river. Now they could not even 
hear it. Then they saw that the sun had darkened 
behind a heavy cloud that came rolling over the 
sky, and the first big drops of an oncoming shower 
fell on their upturned faces. 

“Funny we don’t come out on the trail,” mused 
Tim. “Which way did we come in, do you mind?” 

“No, I don’t seem to remember. Don’t you? 
I wasn’t taking much notice of anything but the 
way to my mouth,” admitted Ralph. “Wonder 
if we hadn’t better turn more to the left?” But 
that was easier said than done in that tangle. 

On and on they fought their way, till presently 
they were out of the swamp, at least. At the mo¬ 
ment of the shower they managed to find shelter 
of a sort under a thick-crowned little spruce tree. 

“Do you know what I believe?” asked Tim, 
as they waited for the downpour to spend itself. 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 5 

“I believe the best thing we can do is to follow 
our footsteps straight back the way we came.” 

“That so, really?” groaned the older boy. 
“Well, Dad warned me that it was everlastingly 
easy to get lost in these woods.” 

“But — but — ” gasped Tim, examining the soft 
ground in the fast-gathering gloom. “Where are 
our foot-prints? Ralph, do you know what has 
happened ? The rain has washed out every mark, 
as clean as a new slate!” 

“Honestly?” ejaculated Ralph, kneeling to verify 
the statement with his own eyes. “Tim, I've got 
you into this, and there's no excuse for it, either. 
I'd hate to let my Scout Master get wind of it!” 

“Well, it's coming night,” worried Tim. “Let's 
push on, anyway, before it gets any darker, and 
we'll come out somewhere along the river.” 

They kept on till they could no longer see to 
put one foot before the other. Then Ralph made 
a torch by thrusting a roll of birch-bark into the 
split end of a stick, and lighted it by the aid of the 
flint-stone he always carried. 

“Ralph, look at this!” Tim exclaimed after a 
time. “ Isn't this the very tree we got under when 
it showered? Look here! Here's where I pried 
off that spruce gum. See the mark of my broken 
knife! (Smear a little gum on your scratches, 
why don't you?) Here's our foot-prints, too. 
Do you know what we've gone and done?” Tim 
laughed ruefully. “We've gone around in a circle. 


6 


LOST RIVER 


'Most everybody does, in the dark. I guess they 
lead off stronger with their right foot, or some¬ 
thing. Can you beat that?" 

“You've said it. No use trying to make camp 
now." 

“Not a mite." 

The stout boy sighed, for he always hated to lose 
a good meal. “P'rhaps they'll come and find us." 

“No, I think Pap'll wait now till morning. He'd 
know 'twas mighty nigh useless to-night, unless we 
can find our own way back. In the morning I'll 
climb a tree and get an outlook, then we'll know 
which way to head to strike the river." 

Agreed on this plan, the pair set rapidly to work 
to pick themselves a springy browse bed of the 
fragrant spruce fans, Tim's ax and Ralph's blanket 
proving an uncommon stroke of luck. 

“Well, I suppose berries are better than nothing," 
sighed the stout boy, tightening his belt. “But 
it's funny how much better plain bread and butter 
would taste about now. Won't your dad be 
worried stiff?" 

“Him? No, he knows I can take care of my¬ 
self all right, and you too," mumbled the back- 
woods boy drowsily. 

Some time in the middle of the night Ralph 
woke suddenly to hear a loud sniffing almost at his 
ear. Tim was already sitting upright. The city 
boy's scalp prickled as the snort came again. Then 
Tim grabbed up the remnant of their torch. 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 


7 


“ Gimme y'r flint-stone/’ he demanded. The next 
instant he had lighted the birch bark and was 
swinging the blazing ball about like mad. A heavy 
crash through the underbrush told them that the 
intruder was routed. 

“ What was it ? ” Ralph quaked, with beating heart. 

“A bear,” laughed Tim. “Bet I threw a scare 
into him, all right!” 

Ralph wondered that Tim could take it so matter- 
of-factly, for his own knees were shaking. 

“ If we'd 'a' had a night fire, he'd never 'a' come 
near,” vouched the guide's son, dropping off to 
sleep again. And despite his secret misgivings, 
the city boy had soon emulated his example. 

Tim's mind was like an alarm clock. He could 
set himself to wake at any hour of the night, and as 
surely as that hour came around he would open 
his eyes. This habit he had acquired through years 
of replenishing the camp-fire. 

No sooner, therefore, had a rose-pink dawn set 
the birds to chirping and the dew to glinting like 
opals on every leaf and spider-web, than he was 
shaking the fat boy by the shoulder. “Come 
on, we've got to get back before breakfast,” he 
urged the unwilling sleeper. 

After a few repetitions, the word breakfast did 
the work. 

“Climb your tree, quick,” he urged, “and see 
which way we have to hoof it. I declare I'm 
hollow clear to my shoes!” 


8 


LOST RIVER 


Tim, lithe as a cat, scrambled up the tallest 
beech he could find, a feat his sturdier comrade 
had frequently tried in vain. He peered and 
peered, this way and that. “Say, that's funny," 
he ejaculated. “I can see TWO rivers, and just 
a wee glimpse of a lake." He slid to the ground, 
and traced their course on a bowlder with a pointed 
stone. “Our river is away over, ever so far, but 
there's another one close by," — indicating the 
one to the east. “That must be the Moose." 

“And of course the lake is Megantic," supple¬ 
mented Ralph, “but who would have thought we 
were so far away from camp ? " 

“All we've got to do, though, is just to keep 
the sun square at our left," and he faced south. 

Ralph groaned. “I suppose it will be hours 
now till we get any breakfast." 

“Why, no," mused Tim, “I guess I can scrape 
up something to eat." And he started searching 
about under the evergreens, while Ralph stretched 
the stiffness out of his chilled bones. 

In less than fifteen minutes Tim came running 
back with his hat full of calla-lily shaped mush¬ 
rooms, as yellow as egg yolk, with wide gills running 
down the under side clear along the stem. 

“Chantarelles!" marveled Ralph. “I've looked 
for those a million times, and I never saw one 
before, outside of my mushroom book. But are 
you perfectly sure they're not poison?" 

“I don't know what any one with Bostonitis 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 


would call ’em,” Tim assured him, “but Fve eaten 
bushels of them. Fll swear to that.” 

“That proves you’re a Maine-iac,” laughed Ralph. 

Tim threw a mushroom at him. “ I like them fried 
in butter. But about the only thing we can do is to 
broil ’em on sticks,” and he proceeded to scrape a 
circle of earth free of pine needles and build a hand¬ 
ful of dry twigs, log-cabined over a few loose shreds 
of paper birch, into a cook-fire. 

Despite his qualms Ralph smacked his lips as 
he sampled his first chantarelles, and he lingered lov¬ 
ingly over his last. “ Well, who’d ever think anything 
could taste so good?” he marveled. 

“You just ought to try them stewed in butter.” 

“Sure, though, you’ve not poisoned us?” a bit 
uneasily. 

“I tell you, there’s no mistaking this kind,” 
asserted the guide’s son. “There’s no poison 
kind that’s anything like it. Just remember, — 
yellow ribs that run clear down the stem, and this 
sorta cup shape, and yellow inside and out, — 
and smells good. Don’t pick any that have spongy 
pores instead of gills underneath, nor any of these 
umbrella-shaped ones, and you can’t mistake em.” 

“All right,” said Ralph, snatching a mouthful 
of raspberries in passing. They were just round¬ 
ing a frog pond. “My, I’m hungry enough to eat 
frogs’ legs.” 

“Guess we’d better not stop,” Tim flung over 
his shoulder, striding along with toes pointed 


10 LOST RIVER 

straight ahead and the rolling hips of the woods¬ 
man. 

Ralph stumbled along after him as best he could 
through the underbrush, stubbing his toes on pro¬ 
truding roots and sinking his foot ankle-deep into 
the bog pools. Though his inexperience, coupled 
with his weight, made him awkward, and he was 
both scratched and bruised, he could always laugh 
at his own mishaps. 

“ There!” pointed Tim, as they passed a swampy 
place grown thick with Jack-in-the-pulpits, “the 
Indians use those roots for turnips.” 

“Oh, boy!” shouted the city boy, pulling one 
and sampling it. Tim doubled with laughter at 
the wry face he made. 

“They have to be baked, — and all sorts of 
things,” he explained, “to take the pucker out of 
them.” 

“Well, I just guess I’d have to be pretty far 
from bacon and flap-jacks to relish those things,” 
spat Ralph. And what he might have done to 
retaliate will never be known, as they came out on 
the river at that instant. 

The two boys hurried forward on the run. “I 
don't remember that big island, do you?” wondered 
Ralph. 

Tim's brow was knit. “No, I can't say I do. 
But I guess in roving around in the dark we've 
got clear to the headwaters. So we'll just have 
to make our way down-stream.” But he spoke 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 


11 


with more confidence than he felt, for in another 
moment he stopped. “ Ralph!" he asked ex¬ 
citedly, “how comes it that we have to go down¬ 
stream, when we've been going down all forenoon? 
Weren't we already headed south?" And he 
pointed his left arm at the morning sun. 

“That's a fact," puzzled Ralph worriedly. “I'd 
have said for sure that Dead River ran south-east. 
Dad and I studied the map last spring till we fairly 
dreamed about it. And this river's surely going 
south -west,” studying the sun. “Oh, well, I sup¬ 
pose it must wind around more or less. Ever 
been up this far before?" 

“No," admitted Tim, “never to the headwaters." 

“Well, then, come on." This time Ralph led 
the way, preferring the bowlders in midstream to 
the boggy levels that here lined either side. 
“There's a mystery somewhere, but all we can do 
now is to follow down-stream." 

It was a clean-washed day, the green pools of 
the winding river glinting transparent in the golden 
sunshine that filtered through the trees, and above, 
a blue sky fleeced with puffy wind clouds. A 
flock of crows followed their progress through the 
silent forest, discussing the intruders hoarsely 
among themselves. 

Hour followed hour. The river widened, and 
they had to make their way for the most part along 
the bank. Still no sign of camp, nor any familiar 
landmark. Noon passed, warm and drowsy. Tim 


12 


LOST RIVER 


adroitly caught half a dozen frogs and, peeling their 
skin off like a pair of trousers, roasted the tender 
saddles to supplement their berries. 

“ Funny how, when you're hungry, you can't 
think of anything but food," he mused, — for he 
was faint through having no reserve of surplus 
flesh to fall back upon. 

“How did you say they cooked those Jack-in- 
the-pulpits?" inquired Ralph. 

Ever since the sun had passed the meridian, a 
conviction had been growing upon him. He voiced 
it now. “Tim, we're lost! This isn't our river 
at all." 

“I'll climb another tree," suggested Tim, speak¬ 
ing in an offhand manner to hide his anxiety. 
With him, to speak was to act. With eyes narrowed 
against the sun, he peered along the silver thread 
of the waterway, but he could see no sign of the 
little beach on which their tents were pitched. 
To the east, a rising line of hills cut off the view 
of the stream Tim had thought lay to their left. 
Silently he sat there spying out the landscape, 
under the spell of the panic he was fighting. The 
sudden crashing of the branches just across the 
river set his heart to thumping. 

Ralph heard it too, — and over his shoulder he 
glimpsed a huge specimen of that wild brother to 
the bull, a moose, coming down to the river for a 
drink. They were in a part of the woods where 
the trees interlaced closely overhead, leaving long, 



“Ralph felt his hands giving way, and struggled 
to climb higher.” 















TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 


13 


straight trunks, with no branches till the very 
crown was reached. The fat boy made for the 
nearest trunk, but it was too large for him: he 
could scarcely lock his fingers around it, and could 
make no progress. 

“Take a little one, a smooth one,” Tim called 
frantically, and this time Ralph had better luck, 
though he could get just so far and no farther. 
There he clung, desperately, wondering if that giant 
beast would be able to reach his legs. Peering with 
straining eyes from his airy perch, he watched as 
the moose came stalking out on the river bank, 
turning his great head this way and that in order 
to get his antlers through between the crowding 
branches. He stood fully ten feet high. Ralph 
knew that one stroke of his sharp fore-hooves was 
enough to kill a wolf. 

Suddenly the lumbering movements ceased. The 
bull must have got some wind of the boys' pres¬ 
ence. With a flap of his huge ears he stamped and 
snorted, blowing loudly through his nostrils. 

Ralph, despite the utmost he could do, felt his 
hands giving way and struggled to climb higher. 


CHAPTER II 

The Battle of the Elements 

The stout boy looked so comical that Tim, on 
the second branch above, could not restrain a smile. 
Then a mischievous idea came to him. 

“Climb! Grip with your knees and climb!" 
he yelled frantically. “He can reach you there! 
Quick! I tell you, climb!” 

Ralph eyed the moose, who stood with his black 
mane bristling at the commotion, antlers high, 
nostrils dilating. 

“Quick, before he bellows !" urged Tim. 
“He'll chop your legs off, with those antlers! He 
c'n almost chop a tree down. He'll charge full 
tilt in a minute." 

Ralph, gasping with effort, (if not from terror), 
struggled to reach a safe elevation. Now Tim 
knew that moose seldom attack save in the fall of 
the year, when in a mood to test out the survival 
of the fittest with those antlers grown, apparently, 
just to serve this end. Ordinarily moose, like other 
denizens of the wild lands, desire only to keep en¬ 
tirely out of man's sight and mind, and will sooner 
14 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 15 

run than fight unless they believe themselves cor¬ 
nered, or their young in danger. 

Once in the spring Tim had come full upon a bull 
moose as he was making his way through the brush, 
and he had but to crouch motionless while the 
huge beast sniffed and peered with his near-sighted 
little eyes. Then the lumbering creature went 
crashing away from the unknown danger brought 
to his nostrils on the ribbon of the breeze. 

No, this moose was not dangerous, but the fat 
boy was learning to climb! 

Tim burst into delighted laughter, as Ralph 
somehow managed to reach the limb beneath. 
“Well, you've learned to climb, old top!" he con¬ 
gratulated his bulky comrade. Ralph stared at 
him in disgusted surprise. 

In reality, the whole episode had taken but a 
few moments. With another stamp and a snort, the 
moose plunged back into covert, crashing through 
the underbrush pell-mell. 

“I don't know which of you was the most scairt," 
howled Tim. “But y' learned to climb, all right! 
I figured it was as good a time to l'arn y' as any." 

Ralph looked pretty sober as he struggled to re¬ 
cover his breath. Then he too joined in the laughter. 
“Might as well learn one time as another." 

But he was destined to have bad dreams that 
night, when the twilight brought a certain long, 
plaintive call, quavering and dying weirdly as some 
cow moose called her calf. 


16 


LOST RIVER 


Tim took another survey. “Do you know,” 
he called, clambering down and tracing in the soft 
earth of the river bank with a stick, “ I think we 
wandered clear around the upper end of Dead 
River last night. That berry bog must have been 
the edge of the pond it rises in. At that rate, that 
nearest river I saw this morning was ours, only 
we didn't know it, because we were on the wrong 
side.” 

“We've come miles since,” despaired Ralph. 
“ Do you think we'd better try to find our way back ? 
Or are we sure enough lost?” 

“You know what the Indian said: ‘Me not 
lost. Trail lost. Me right here,"' laughed Tim. 
“To tell you the honest truth, I don't believe we'd 
ever in this world find our way back to where we 
came from, — we'd only get off the river and maybe 
never find another. I think we'd better keep on 
down-stream. Then we'll be sure to come out 
somewhere.” 

“Unless it's the Margalloway.” 

“Well, you come out somewhere even on that, 
if—” 

“If you don't starve before you get there. It's 
one hundred miles to human habitation, if that's 
what we're on.” 

“Starve — with all these Jack-in-the-pulpits?” 
teased the backwoods boy. “No, seriously, Pap'll 
think we've gone on, Moose River way, and he'll 
be getting farther and farther from us all the time, 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 


17 


while we've been hot-footing it in the exact op¬ 
posite direction/' 

“Wish I had Dad's compass." 

“ 'Twouldn't do us any good. Because we wouldn't 
know which direction we wanted to go anyway." 

“Well, I wouldn't kick if I only had my fishing 
tackle, with a river all the way." Ralph remem¬ 
bered that he ought to keep up the courage of the 
younger boy. 

“'Tisn't starving Tm afraid of," said Tim. “It's 
breaking our legs, or something, where we'd be 
helpless." 

For a moment Ralph experienced a panic, but 
“steady, there, sit tight," he kept telling himself 
over and over again, and presently it occurred to 
him that even though they were lost, they were 
very far from being down and out. By their com¬ 
bined woodcraft they would wrest food and shelter 
from the wilderness. 

“What are you doing?" he asked Tim with a 
voice once more optimistic. 

“Makin' a fish-net." 

“How?" 

“With watape," and the backwoods boy began 
searching about for a white spruce tree. Nimbly 
ripping out an armful of the pliable rootlets, he 
proceeded to remove the bark, and split the larger 
ones. “They'd tie better if we had time to soak 'em," 
he volunteered, “but we won't stop this afternoon." 
His swift fingers began tying the strands together. 


18 


LOST RIVER 


"What's that, the weaver’s knot?” demanded 
Ralph. 

“Dunno. Just a knot,” said Tim. 

"I know that one!” Ralph declared, delightedly 
beginning to tie. “Hurray, we’ll have a good feed 
yet, I see!” 

Under the efforts of their two pairs of hands 
they shortly had a crude net with meshes just too 
small to let a six-inch trout through. Around 
this they tied a hoop of willow shoots. Com¬ 
pleted, the net was about twelve inches across. 

“Now we’ve got to stop this up,” said Tim, 
wading into a tributary brook. He threw a minia¬ 
ture dam together by shifting the rocks about. 
He left an open channel, and in this they fastened 
the net. 

“Lots of fish here,” he promised, leading the 
way up-stream. “Only they’re quiet, this time 
o’ year. We’ve got to poke ’em out. You take 
that side and I’ll take this,” and he began beat¬ 
ing about in the water with his stick. Soon they 
could see the shiny forms gliding from their hiding- 
places. The boys drove them down-stream, and 
the fish, once in the net, stayed there stupidly try¬ 
ing to poke their noses through. 

“Wow! It isn’t exactly what you’d call sports¬ 
manlike,” laughed Ralph. 

“’N’ it’s ag’in’ the law,” amended Tim, “’cept 
in a case like this.” 

“But — do we EAT?” gloated Ralph, running 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 19 

to lift out the net, with its wriggling catch, and re¬ 
lease the brook again. 

Tim ripped out gills and entrails and spit 
the little fellows on a row of greenwood sticks, 
which he stuck slant-wise over a bed of hard¬ 
wood coals. At once the air was redolent of broil¬ 
ing trout. 

As Ralph watched the fire impatiently, he was 
mystified by Tim's maneuvers. The latter kept 
kneeling to examine some plant, which he uprooted 
and stuffed into his blouse. But Ralph thought 
he had better not betray his ignorance. 

He therefore watched with considerable interest 
as his partner unloaded before the fire. First 
Tim laid out half a dozen bulbs that looked for all 
the world like green corn on the cob. Tasted 
like it, too, Ralph found, upon experiment. 

“What's this?" he exclaimed in surprise. 

“Yaller lily," vouched Tim, who had waded for 
the roots. 

“This one's wild garlic," Ralph pronounced tri¬ 
umphantly, nibbling at the slender leaf that sprang 
from a cluster of bulblets. There were three star¬ 
shaped blossoms, pinky white. 

“Ramps, I alius called 'em," said Tim. 

Ralph was fingering a whitish root, when he saw 
Tim take a huge bite out of its mate. Ralph took 
a nibble of his. “Tastes just like cucumber," he 
exclaimed. 

“It is cucumber," said Tim calmly. 


20 


LOST RIVER 


“What? Not the kind we have back home? 
What are you giving me?” 

“'Indian cucumber.'” Tim explained. 

“ Where'd you get 'em? Why didn't you get 
more?” 

“Show you to-morrow,” promised Tim, beam¬ 
ing with pride. 

“Say, the Touraine isn't in it beside this,” gloated 
the stout boy hungrily. “All we need now is finger 
bowls.” 

There were also some young ferns, not yet in the 
down, all curled up as tight as they could be. And 
there were the juicy spotted leaves of the dog-tooth 
violet from the marsh along the river bank. 

“What're you going to do?” demanded Ralph, 
as Tim began washing his greens. 

“Boil 'em, of course.” 

“What in, your hat?” sniffed the city boy. 
“If only we had our nested aluminum — ” 

“If only we had a million dollars,” scorned Tim. 
And from a fallen log he proceeded to peel a square of 
birch bark as long as his arm. Ralph watched quizzi¬ 
cally, while the Maine boy creased it from corner 
to corner and folded a deep hem on each side. 

In a very few minutes Tim had pinched each 
corner together and folded as neat a little box as 
Ralph had ever seen, pinning the lapped edges 
with stout splinters run along near the top. 

He held up the one-piece vessel, an affair the 
size of a quart strawberry box, for approval. 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 


21 


“That's all right/' admitted his companion, as 
Tim filled it from the brook, “but just wait till the 
flame catches it!" 

“Wait yourself," Tim retorted. He now set to 
work to build a tiny stone fireplace with a draft 
hole at the bottom and an opening of about three 
inches square on top. Filling this with live coals 
from their cook-fire, which he lifted with a forked 
greenwood stick, he filled in the chinks between 
stones with moss to keep the flames inside. 

Setting the bark kettle, half full, over this open¬ 
ing, he soon had the water boiling briskly and 
ready for their greens. 

“You're on," Ralph was just about to admit, 
when a sudden jerk of Tim's elbow and he had 
overturned the bucket, setting the fire to hissing 
beneath a cloud of steam. 

“Lend me your knife," howled Ralph, glad to 
have a laugh on Tim. “ I'll show you how." And 
he set to work on a kettle of his own. “What's 
more, I'll go you one better. I remember now, 
our Scout Master said once that you could set it 
directly on the coals," and Ralph demonstrated. 

Tim watched from beneath amused lashes, but 
made no comment. Ralph had his water boil¬ 
ing in a twinkling, but suddenly a little flame curled 
up the side and the bark blazed, letting the water 
splash hissing into the fire. 

“You didn't bank it around with ashes," he 
vouched then. 


22 


LOST RIVER 


“Why should I?” 

“You mustn't let the flame touch it above the 
water line." 

Ralph never objected to a laugh at his own ex¬ 
pense. 

“There's just one thing we haven't got," he re¬ 
marked, when at last fish and vegetables had dis¬ 
appeared. “We're going to miss the salt-shake 
awfully." 

“Are you?" and Tim ran to cut some hickory 
bark. Ralph watched, cudgeling his memory for 
the clew, as Tim built a handful of fire on a flat rock, 
over which he laid the bark. 

“There," said Tim, when at last there was 
nothing left but ash. He sprinkled a bit of fish 
sparingly with it. “'Tisn't the same, of course, 
but — " 

“It's mighty near!" Ralph shouted. “Now 
we're all right. Oh — I know what it is. It's 
niter! That’s it — niter," and he smote his 
forehead. “Now I'll just top off on a little cup 
of coffee!" He looked expectantly at the wizard 
Tim. 

“I can make you a cup of tea," said that in¬ 
domitable youth. 

“How?" demanded Ralph unbelievingly. 

“Bile sassafras buds, or even cinquefoil," and 
he searched about for a handful of the tiny yellow 
flowered plants, growing everywhere along the river 
bank. 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 


23 


Ralph withheld judgment till Tim had refilled his 
bark pail and demonstrated. 

"It isn't so bad," he finally admitted, "though I'd 
never bother with it when we could get fresh water." 

All that day they followed the widening stream 
from rock to rock. The sun had been as red as 
blood a full hour before sunset, — sure promise of 
a hot day to come, — and the boys bivouacked a 
little back from the river, in a mountain meadow 
dotted with daisies that strewed the high grass 
like the Milky Way, with here a clump of yellow 
clover, and there a patch of pink sweet clover, and 
everywhere great feathery tangles of blue vetch. 

They were up and about with the first paling 
of the stars. That day they hiked steadily along 
the bank of the stream, till Ralph's ankles were stiff 
and swollen, and Tim's face looked drawn. They 
were covering the ground in double-quick time, 
for such rough going. 

Towards evening great black clouds rolled up out 
of the southwest, and they realized that they would 
have to find shelter quickly. Where an instant 
before all had been hot and still, the river was 
whipped into whitecaps, and trees groaned under 
the first onslaught of the gale. Birds were hushed, 
crickets ceased their singing, and squirrels forgot 
to chatter. The tree-tops bent this way and that. 
Dead branches were torn from their moorings and 
sent before the wind. With flashes of living steel 
and loud roaring of cloud cannonry, the armies of 


24 


LOST RIVER 


the heavens, gathering reenforcements as they came, 
were soon concentrated almost directly overhead. 

Then the first big drops began to spatter coldly. 
The two boys looked helplessly at one another. 

“I was knocked down once, when a bolt struck 
a tree near our barn," offered Tim, white faced. 
“ Somehow, lightnin' seems to be the one thing you 
can't fight." 

“I know. We mustn't stay under these tall 
trees," agreed Ralph. “I can't seem to remember 
whether our Scout Manual says it's safe or dangerous 
on the water." 

“ My grandmaw always says to get into a feather¬ 
bed," proffered Tim. 

“We always shut the windows so's to keep out 
of the draft." 

“What're we goin' to do?" For once Tim was 
at a loss. 

“We've got to have some kind of shelter. Yet 
it isn't safe in the woods." 

“Nor under lone trees either." 

“Nor oak trees." 

“I know," ejaculated Tim. “We might find a 
ledge, or a cave, up there in the hills. Come on, 
let's not stay here, anyway," and he led off with 
all the speed of which his thin legs were capable. 

Ralph followed, gasping for breath, while the 
thunders crashed louder and louder, and the vivid 
flashes lighted the woods every other instant, then 
left them darker than before. 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 


25 


“Some sprint !” gasped the stout boy, stumbling 
almost flat, when finally they had come to an open 
spot where a giant bowlder stood naked of all save 
a stunted spruce and the usual tangle of under¬ 
brush. 

“Under here!” directed Tim, huddling close 
under the overhang. By hugging the base of the 
rock, they found they were out of the rain, at least 
until the wind should swing around. 

“Ouch! My bean!” exclaimed Ralph, as the 
sharp crash of a fallen tree caused him to start 
back abruptly, bumping his head against the roof. 

From their perch in the crevice of the over¬ 
hanging bowlder, they could now see off over the 
mountain-side for miles. And a wonderful sight 
it was, — as they realized afterwards, — with the 
brilliant thrusts of the heavenly bayonets cutting 
through the black bosoms of the clouds, and the 
reverberating roar of the accompanying artillery. 

Tim was unable to suppress a scream, as the daz¬ 
zling light, followed instantly by a crash that nearly 
split their ear drums, seemed to search out their 
very rock. Then a huge giant of the forest fast¬ 
nesses scarcely more than a stone's throw beneath 
them shot into blinding flame, its trunk twisting 
apart and its branches whirling to the ground. 

“Were we struck?” asked Ralph in an awe¬ 
struck voice, his heart pounding against his ribs. 

“It came mighty near,” gasped Tim. “Say! 
I wonder if this is a safe place, after all?” 


CHAPTER III 
A Strange Peril 

The next instant the entire sky was lighted up, 
as another great tree fell. Almost at the same 
instant the thunders began a bombardment of the 
surrounding peaks that echoed and re-echoed for 
long moments afterwards. 

The two boys clung together, their eyes dilating 
and their scalps prickling. 

“I’m going to get out of here!” said Ralph, 
eyeing their sheltering bowlder as if expecting it 
to topple over on them any minute. Grabbing 
Tim by the arm so firmly that the smaller boy was 
forced to follow, willy-nilly, he raced out into the 
thick of the downpour, where the forest growth 
was scantiest. M 

Stumbling blindly through the pelting torrents, 
he suddenly found a great log, hollow at one end, 
at his feet. 

“ Crawl in, quick! ” he shouted. The smaller boy 
obeyed. 

Then Ralph essayed the feat. Wriggling and 
writhing on all fours, he squeezed his plump person 
26 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 27 


in, feet foremost; and by dint of much persistence 
he finally found himself completely under cover, 
save for his head, which was protected by his Stet¬ 
son hat. 

Tim, who had gone in head first, shoving the 
blanket before him, fared less favorably, as he could 
scarcely breathe; besides, it was terrifying to hear 
the battle of the elements all about him when he 
was so helpless. 

“Let me out!” he called; but Ralph could not 
hear him, and all the prisoner could do was to shove 
with both feet against Ralph's broader soles. 

Then — like a dash of ice water — it occurred 
to the Scout that the log might become dislodged 
and go rolling down hill with them. 

The rain had slackened a little, but there were 
deep rivulets rushing down each little gully, or 
spreading in sheets over the rock face. 

Both boys were struggling hard to extricate 
themselves from their too snug shelter, but the 
stout boy came so near sticking fast before he could 
get his arms out that he had to laugh at his own 
predicament. 

The next thing Tim knew, the log seemed to crawl 
forward, as Ralph strove, by clutching at up¬ 
standing rocks, to separate his person from its 
shelter. 

The storm was just retreating up the river valley 
when he finally accomplished his design. Then 
Tim had to be painlessly extracted. 


28 


LOST RIVER 


“Do you know, we are a mighty lucky pair?” 
said Ralph gravely, once their laugh was over. 

“I know,” said Tim soberly. “Two trees — 
that near! We got out from under just in time!” 

The blanket, at any rate, was fairly dry, and the 
boys decided to make camp for the night under 
their overhanging bowlder, where a fire built be¬ 
tween it and its neighbor would warm things in 
no time. 

Indeed, they were so happy there, and so drowsy 
after their drenching, that for once they were per¬ 
fectly contented to go supperless to bed. 

“Y'p, Yr-r-r-r! Y'p, y-r-r-r! ” suddenly came to 
their ears from the hilltop, the second shrill note 
higher than the first. 

And “Yap-y-r-r, yap-y-r-r-r! ” came an answer¬ 
ing call from across the canon, this time all on the 
same key, lower pitched. 

“That's a fox and his mate,” said Tim. “Wonder 
what they're hunting to-night? Or are the cubs in 
danger? No, I don't think they'd bark if it was 
that, — unless they wanted to throw the enemy off 
the scent. They'd never bark anywhere near the 
den. Wish we could catch a baby fox.” 

A little later the “Y'p, yr-r-r” sounded from the 
bottom of the canon. Then after a long, long time 
the boys heard the harsh yowl of some large animal 
of the cat tribe, — Tim thought a lynx. He read 
the story to Ralph next day, when they came across 
the telltale foot-prints. And had they but heeded 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 29 


what they read, they would never have met with 
the adventure that later overtook them. * 

The little drama began with the leisurely foot¬ 
prints of a hare. Suddenly his two-foot bounds 
increased to five, the front tracks blending into 
one mark as he vaulted into a quick jump nearly 
twelve feet in length. Evidently Master Bunny 
was in a hurry. 

The reason soon appeared in a small dog-like 
trail with the clear indication of a dragging brush. 
As this trail, the foot-prints scarcely more than 
fifteen inches apart, neared the bunny tracks, they 
increased to little groups of four set close together 
at the end of each long bound. And now the brush 
must have been held well off the ground, for it left 
no trace. 

The addle-pated hare had gone around in a circle, 
while the fox waited for what he knew would happen. 
Then there was a pounce that carried bunny off 
his feet, and Daddy Red Fox had trotted away 
with his prize. 

The boys followed the light foot-prints for some 
time, here losing them, there circling around until 
they crossed the trail again, scanning each patch 
of bare ground sharply. 

Crossing this trail at right angles came the big 
furry, blurry paw marks of what seemed a giant 
cat, four times as big as that of the average Tabby. 
From the looks of the ground where it was bare, 
the lynx had evidently crept upon a covey of quail, 


30 


LOST RIVER 


whose four-toed foot-prints (with the hind toe 
scarce touching terra firma) were quite plain in 
the springy places, under a low-hanging fir tree. 
That she had met with moderate success was hinted 
by the scattered feathers. 

Whether she had had designs on the hidden red fox 
pups, or whether she had had the foolhardiness to 
believe that she could actually stalk the old fox, 
it would be hard to tell. Perhaps she feared he 
was too near her own secreted offspring. At any 
rate, a little farther on, a muddy patch by a spring 
showed her foot-print half superimposed on his, 
by which token the boys gathered that he had been 
ahead. And a fox can always outspeed a lynx. 
The latter's only chance is to close with him, — 
a thing she almost never gets a chance to try. 

The boys were far more interested in finding the 
fox's den, be it noted, than they were in the evidence 
that they had a lynx for fellow-camper. But no den 
could they discover. 

That day they followed the ridge for a change. 
So ambitious were they to find themselves, and so 
fresh did they feel after their long night's sleep, 
that when the day ended they decided to keep on 
for a while. The full moon turned the scene to 
fairyland. On the ridges it was fairly open, and 
Tim led the way at a telling pace. 

“We ought to keep due south," he decided, 
gazing at the stars. 

“How do you tell?" asked Ralph. 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 31 

“Why, don't you know the big dipper?" 

“Sure I do," declared the city boy, searching 
through the northern sky. “That's a fact, — I'd 
plumb forgotten. The side opposite the handle 
points to the west in summer. But how could we 
tell directions if there weren't any stars?" 

“That's easy. For one thing, the branches are 
shorter on the north side of a tree, — taken by and 
large, that is," explained the backwoods boy. 

“I declare!" exclaimed Ralph, gazing into the 
branches overhead. 

When finally the moon was halfway across the 
sky, they made themselves a brush lean-to against 
possible showers, and burrowed luxuriously into a 
bed of perfumed cedar boughs. In the morning — 
having neither fish nor mushrooms to fill the aching 
void — they steeled their hearts to^stern necessity 
and clubbed a half-grown porcupine on the head, 
after chasing the clumsy fellow for at least fifteen 
minutes in and out of the underbrush and nearly 
up a tree trunk. 

“I saw some Arum down by the river yesterday," 
volunteered the backwoods boy. “If we had to 
stand siege long, I could wade in, next place we 
come to, and get enough for a mess, and we could 
roast 'em like potatoes — only it takes all day and 
all night before they are fit to eat." 

“I'd relish some potatoes," said Ralph longingly. 
“ In dad's outfit we had some of this — you know — 
dehydrated potato." 


32 


LOST RIVER 


“Ugh! I’ve tasted it,” and Tim shook his head 
negatively. 

“Oh, it is all right in a chowder,” said Ralph, 
“or fried in sizzling bacon fat.” 

“Did you know,” said Tim, “that the Indians 
grind up birch bark and bake it, if supplies get low 
near the end of winter?” 

“ They’re welcome! ” 

“They take the inner bark of their canoes.” 

“That reminds me,” and the stout boy brightened. 
“Do you suppose we could find a big canoe-birch? 
Wouldn’t it be just spiffy if we could make a bark 
canoe?” 

“Do you know how?” 

“Um — let’s find our tree first.” 

The two boys really put in half a day looking for 
one of the great white beauties, — but without 
sighting a thing from which they could have peeled 
a twenty-foot length. Finally Tim remembered 
that it ought to be peeled in the spring, anyway, 
when the running sap makes the bark pliable; and 
they “called it off.” 

“What eats me is these punkies,” complained 
Tim, as they came to a swarm of midges who seemed 
bound to keep them company. 

“‘Eats’ is right,” agreed Ralph. “Though we’re 
lucky it’s too late in the season for black flies. 
Wish I had my can of dope.” 

Tim was rolling up a “cigar” of cedar bark, one 
strip dry to two that were water-soaked. When 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 33 


he had a good eight inches of this combination, he 
lighted one end and the punkies bade them a more 
or less reluctant farewell. 

The talk once more turned on the provisioning 
problem. “Tell you what,” said Ralph, “let's put 
that porcupine to cook and go exploring, and see 
if we can't find something in the nature of fixings 
to go with it. And perhaps we'll see some signs of 
a trail.'' 

“ It's bread I crave more than any other one thing,'' 
said Tim. “If only we'd known we were going to 
get lost, now, I'd have laid in bacon and corn meal 
and coffee, and um! We wouldn't be in any hurry 
to find ourselves again! But don't stop all day 
to pick blueberries, pard. We've got to get a lot 
more wear out of our shoe leather, if we don't want 
to make a summer of it up here.'' For it was a 
great temptation to his heartier companion to laze 
along the way. 

Suddenly, in the stillness of the early afternoon, 
they heard a peculiar crying, — mewing, rather, 
as of hungry kittens. And Ralph insisted on in¬ 
vestigating. 

But, first, they had to put their porcupine to 
bake, covering it with clay (quills and all), in order 
that the skin might peel off, when done, with its 
hard clay covering. 

“I've heard it's as good as spring lamb,” said 
Ralph. “And after all, isn't it a sort of wild pig?” 

“No, he's got feet more like a bear,” said Tim. 


34 


LOST RIVER 


“He’s a vegetarian, anyway.” 

“Yes, I don’t see why he ought not to make good 
eating, though I’m scared to death of getting a 
quill in my hand.” 

Following the faint sound of mewing still brought 
to their ears on the ribbon of the wind, the two 
boys came to a cliff where, overhanging a steep 
drop to a rocky brook-bed, a cave mouth shone 
dusky between a snarl of hemlock thicket and a 
tangle of thorny vines, which formed a barbed wire 
entanglement on the other side, as it interlaced the 
branches of a fallen tree. 

On the ledge before the cave mouth the boys, 
creeping forward silently on hands and knees till 
they could peer down from above, saw a sight that 
held them breathless. For there played two of 
the most mischievous kittens that ever boxed one 
another’s ears! 

Wild kittens, Madame Lynx’s babies, their velvety 
stripes proclaimed them. And there was certainly 
a fierceness in their infant whines, as they leaped at 
one another in a wrestling match, and an ungain- 
liness about their broad, padded feet and stubby 
tails, that made assurance doubly sure. 

They were larger, too, than domestic kittens, 
and both had the peculiar black penciling and 
tasseling of the ear that mark the Lucifee. In 
color the little fellows were grizzled a reddish- 
grayish brown, their sides vaguely spotted. 

Flat on their bellies the two savage youngsters 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 35 

would creep upon each other; then with a box of 
the ear and a growl from the tiny throats they 
would mouth one another in mock ferocity. 

After a little, the play must have whetted their 
appetites, for they whined and whimpered hungrily, 
then cuddled together in the cave mouth and went 
to sleep. 

“Tim,” whispered the delighted Ralph, “I'm 
going to have one of those little rascals!” 

“Don't! He'll claw you to pieces. Besides, 
what would you do with him after you had him?” 

“Take him with us, of course. Don't you worry, 
I'd soon have him eating out of my hand — ” 

“You would not.” 

“Cats all eat fish, don't they?” 

“But—” Tim hesitated. It was certainly a big 
temptation, as he thought how he should like to 
stroke the velvety heads and play with the little 
fellows. For Ralph's part, he was thinking how 
he would love to exhibit such a pet. (And not at 
all of the point of view of either the kitten or its 
mother.) 

Before Tim could remonstrate further, he had 
half slid, half dropped down the face of the cliff 
till his feet rested on the ledge before the cave. * ! 

The kittens, of course, alert even in sleep, aroused 
and ran hissing inside the instant they heard the 
noise above them. Ralph was just about to follow 
when a warning shout from Tim caused him to 
look behind him. 


36 


LOST RIVER 


There, on the top of a stunted hemlock, with green 
eyes glinting furiously from behind narrowed lids, 
and stub tail twitching from side to side, stood 
Madame Wild Cat, the great muscles rippling be¬ 
neath her furry coat, her legs drawn under her for a 
spring. 

Ralph leaped blindly for the opposite side of the 
ledge. He had no weapon with which he could 
fight off an attack, unless he thrust the blanket on 
his back into her face and smothered her. There 
wasn't even so much as a loose stone with which 
he might hold at bay her savage onslaught. For 
though she was not large, as compared with bears 
and moose, he knew she was armed with twenty 
steel claws that could cut him into tatters if she 
were to spring upon him. 

In all the wilderness about, there is no animal so 
ferocious as a lynx, and the mother is far more 
unutterably savage than her mate, when she thinks 
her kittens are endangered. 

“Get out of the way so I can throw my ax," 
yelled Tim, his customary kindness to animals 
thrust aside by his comrade’s peril. When Ralph 
did not move, he flung himself flat on the cliff 
above and thrust down a helping hand. But 
Ralph’s foot slipped at that moment, and after 
several age-long seconds of trying to regain his 
balance, as he tottered with one pedal extremity 
just off the ledge, he lost his footing entirely and 
went slipping, sliding over the edge of the rock, 



“With green eyes glinting furiously behind narrowed lids/’ 




















































TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 37 


with fingers vainly trying to cling to its smooth 
surface and toes searching for a hold. 

Then his foot struck a narrow cranny on which 
he could rest a part of his weight while he dug his 
fingers into the narrow crack. 

“Jump for it!” screamed Tim. “See that little 
stunted pine just beneath you?” 

Ralph could just see its outline, perhaps ten feet 
lower down. But he dared not risk trying to land 
in its top, for even should it withstand the impact 
of his sudden weight, the risk of missing it alto¬ 
gether was too great, with that yawning chasm of 
jagged rock beneath. 

And yet — how long could he hold on where he 
was, with Madame Wild Cat glaring down at him 
from the ledge above? 


CHAPTER IV 
The Raft 

“Hold hard,” called Tim. “Fm coming.” By 
which he meant that with trembling fingers he was 
twisting together a double strand of wild grape¬ 
vines, which he lowered with his feet braced behind 
an upstanding needle of the rock ledge. Alas for 
the stout boy, clinging so precariously on the ragged 
edge of nothing! The vine did not reach. 

“Jest another minute,” Tim encouraged him, 
casting about wildly for something with which to 
lengthen his rope, while Ralph alternately pictured 
the outraged mother of the bob-cat babies on the 
ledge above him and the jagged rocks of his un¬ 
certain perch. Nor did the chill of the rolling fog 
add anything to his spirits. 

Tearing out the roots of a young fir tree, with 
fingers that stopped not for cuts and bruises, Tim 
spliced his vine as far as he could, then — desperate, 
as he saw Ralph clutching the rock with fingers 
white at the knuckles, he raced to where he had 
noticed a hickory tree a short way back on the deer 
trail, and hacked out several strips of its inner bark. 

38 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 39 


Once again he began lowering his rope. Suddenly 
— without an instant's warning — Ralph loosed 
his hold and shot out into space! 

Tim's heart lost a beat, and there was a sick 
feeling at the pit of his stomach. Then he saw 
that his Scout friend had taken his earlier advice 
and leaped for the top of the little stunted pine. And 
there he sprawled dizzily over the yawning ravine. 

“Here y' are," yelled Tim, flapping the rope till 
it came within arm's reach of his half dazed com¬ 
rade. Ralph, with consciousness just slipping from 
him, grasped the rope and slipped the end loop 
around his body under his arms. 

Tim wound the upper end twice around the rock 
pinnacle to hold it, then set to, with straining arms, 
feet braced prodigiously, to hoist the dead weight 
of the stout boy back to safety. Would his rope 
hold? The result, should the vine give way in 
its friction against the side of the cliff, he dared not 
face! 

Just how the thing was done neither boy could 
afterwards quite tell. But after a seeming eternity 
of effort, Ralph lay safe and sound on the rock 
ledge, with Tim gasping for breath and crimsoned 
from ear to ear, beside him. 

“Water!" was the first word either spoke. And 
with one accord they rose and made their way 
swayingly back to the spring they had passed but 
a short time before. 

Madame Wild Cat, meantime, watched from 


40 


LOST RIVER 


the mouth of her den with fierce green eyes and 
lashing tail, while her kittens padded about behind 
her. 

“That was a pretty close squeak, old man,” said 
Ralph, with a hand on Tim's shoulder. “And you 
bet I won't forget it. Why, you might have been 
dragged over the edge yourself!” Then, because 
both boys were much moved, they fell to talking 
trivialities, their voices still a bit unsteady, though 
they tried hard to conceal it. 

They decided, after eating their baked porcu¬ 
pine, to venture along the crest of the ridge for 
awhile, where the underbrush was not so dense. 
Ralph had cramps in his legs from his adventure, 
and Tim had to knead them vigorously for him. 
The backwoods boy, for his part, had found that even 
his toughened soles could not travel with comfort 
over the broken granite, and they had to cut strips 
from the blanket and wind them about their feet, 
somewhat in the manner of spiral puttees. Tim's 
calves he protected from scratches by tying bark 
about them. — Ralph had leggins. 

The latter had by now acquired something of the 
backwoods boy's loose-jointed stride, hips swinging 
rhythmically to a lengthened pace, toes pointing 
slightly inward and weight divided over the entire 
foot, so that no rolling stone nor entangling root 
could catch him unawares and twist his ankle. It 
was a pace far less fatiguing on uneven ground than 
the rigid-kneed, outward-pointing gait of the city 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 41 


streets; besides he gained more at each stride. It 
was fine country, with the outlook over the river 
valley and on to the blue peaks that faded into the 
sky-line. 

The blueberries were so huge and thick and juicy 
that they could pick them in great clusters, eight 
or nine on a stem. There were the darker purple 
huckleberries, too, and they could see where wild 
strawberries had been thick earlier in the year. 

They were strongly tempted to fill their pockets 
with shiny bits of rock glinting with mica, especially 
when they found a clear piece of white marble. 
But they soon discarded them, finding that an ounce 
in the morning weighs a pound at night. 

Once they found the huge, dog-like foot-prints 
of a black bear, and once the plain marks of a fox 
which had crept within pouncing distance of a wood¬ 
cock, — then a drop of blood, not so very old, on a 
light-colored stone, and just beyond, the delicate 
toe-prints that told that the slim-shod marauder 
had tripped off at top speed with his booty. 

“Gee, I wish we could get a chicken that easy,” 
said Tim hungrily. 

“What I wish is that we had a canteen,” sighed 
Ralph, — a sentiment he repeated more than once 
as their distance from the last spring lengthened. 
“Or we could have brought some water in a bark 
pail!” 

“Well, we didn't,” said Tim. “But just fill 
yourself up on berries.” 


42 


LOST RIVER 


“We’ve passed them all.” 

“Then chew on a green leaf, why don't you? It 
helps a lot. So does carrying a pebble in your mouth. 
Just try it once and see!” 

“I've heard a bit of raw onion would keep you 
from getting thirsty,” agreed Ralph, “but I don't 
suppose we'll find any wild ones up this high. The 
first thing we want to do when we strike human 
habitation is to lay in a few things like that, — if 
we can get them to trust us till Dad can send the 
money.” 

The day had started out sunny by fits and starts, 
— except where the fog lay"in the valleys, — then 
there had been passing showers, with streams of 
white mist that rose up the creases between the 
hills. Finally the sky had filmed over with gray 
cloud, and by mid-afternoon, as they scrambled 
over the granite slabs of one of the higher peaks, 
the two boys found they could scarcely see where 
ledge left off and valley began. A gray-white fog 
was gathering about them, looking for all the world 
like a mass of clouds, only lying lower in the sky and 
coming very much faster. 

Soon the mist was so thick that they could not 
see twenty paces before them. Finally they seemed 
to be walking in a cloud. So heavy was the muggy 
atmosphere that they could not tell where it was 
safe to set foot next. 

In the ,ghost-like stillness, there was something 
almost unreal about the spruce woods. The boys 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 43 


found themselves lowering their voices, and starting 
at the snap of a twig. 

So softly had they been proceeding that presently 
they came plump upon a grouse-cock. Before 
ever he had a chance to take wing, Ralph had thrown 
a stone with such effect that their next meal was 
handsomely provided. 

A little later Tim brought down a fat young gray 
squirrel in the same primitive manner. 

The grouse they broiled at once. The squirrel 
they kept for later. But they dressed it without 
delay. After chopping off the head, feet and tail, 
they easily skinned it by cutting a slash across the 
back and peeling the skin off with their fingers. 
They steamed it tender by digging a hole and fork¬ 
ing into it a bed of stones heated red hot in their 
camp-fire, then covering them with wet leaves 
and placing on the leaves a layer of the meat. This 
they covered with a layer of leaves and earth. Tim 
bored a little hole down to the meat the last thing, 
and poured in enough water to make a steam, then 
quickly stopped up the opening and left it. The 
result was luscious! 

The feast ended, they found that the mist yet 
hung white in the forest aisles, and all landmarks 
were obliterated. They decided they would have 
a good night's rest, for which they gathered great 
armfuls of down-wood and piled it ready for keeping 
a warm fire going all night. Then, stacking a good 
two feet of dwarf cedar browse, softened with a 


44 


LOST RIVER 


layer of mountain blueberry, under an overhanging 
rock ledge, they turned in, with their feet to the blaze. 
In the morning they would make their way back to 
the river, then put a raft together on which they 
could pole their way on down-stream. 

They must, of course, keep a weather eye out for 
food; but their chief need was to find themselves. 
And for that, there seemed nothing to do but to 
follow the river. How far they had wandered 
they could not judge, as in these dense untracked 
woods one might easily put in hours covering half 
a mile. There seemed scant likelihood now of 
finding so much as a surveyor's line to guide them, 
though they might yet come across the blazed trail 
of some trapper that would lead them to a settle¬ 
ment. 

In the morning, therefore, waiting merely till 
the sun had burned its way through the haze, they 
took note of their directions and made for the valley 
again. Another day's stiff hiking, during which 
the sun played hide and seek with the clouds, and 
they came out on the silver thread of the mysterious 
river, which here ran through a green tunnel of 
trees. They then set about making the raft. 

“Say, Ralph," and Tim looked worried, “I'd 
ought to tell ye, I can't swim worth a cent." 

“How much is that?" laughed Ralph, who always 
enjoyed Tim's backwoods lingo. 

“About five strokes," grinned the smaller boy, 
who didn't mind in the least. 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 45 

“ You'd have to go some, if we had a spill, to 
make shore in five strokes,” Ralph teased. “ A skinny 
like you! You’d have to wear seven league gloves.” 

“Huh! You couldn’t sink if you tried, you big 
lump of suet! But I don’t care, I don’t have to 
strike a whole box of matches before I start a camp¬ 
fire.” That shot struck home. 

“ Come on, — thought you knew how to make a 
raft!” 

“Well, what does your Scout book say?” teased 
the backwoods boy, who was still skeptical of 
theoretical knowledge. 

“We want to find three logs, the middle one the 
biggest and the longest, and chop the ends to a 
point. White pine, if we can find any near enough 
the river.” 

“That’s all right,” said Tim, “that’ll float. But 
what are y’ going to put them together with?” 

Ralph looked stumped. “Goodness, we ought 
to have some big nails, or a rope.” 

“How’d this do?” and Tim clipped off a willow 
shoot and wound it into a circlet. 

“Whoopee! That’s the gravy.” 

Ralph would have tackled a down-log they found 
about fifty paces from the river bank, but Tim 
pointed out that they could fell a tree that would 
fall right into the water, and then wade in and 
lop off the branches. 

Selecting three fine, straight pines, — one very 
much larger than the others, — that grew close to 


46 


LOST RIVER 


the bank, they notched them clean and deep on 
the side they wanted them to fall, which happily 
was the direction in which they had the heavier 
growth of branches, and likewise the direction of 
the wind. Then they struck through the opposite 
side at a point a few inches higher, and leaped back 
at right angles to the falling trunk lest it kick back 
at them. 

With such a start, it was not hard to line the three 
logs up, in the shallow water, trim them smooth, 
and bind them together with Tim's twisted willows, 
which he had cut from under water, that they need 
not wait to supple them by soaking. 

Under, over, under they wove the willow withes, 
and back into a chain pattern, fastening this novel 
cordage by thrusting the butt ends beneath a tightly 
drawn loop of the chain. 

The result was a craft about two feet wide, higher 
in the middle where the big log lay, — and pointed 
at both ends to cut the water smoothly, — a proper 
craft for navigating between the huge up-standing 
bowlders that made white water here and there, 
but still rather unsteady for even lithe and practiced 
Tim; while as for Ralph, it meant balancing like 
a tight-rope walker, feet braced one on each of the 
smaller logs, where he took his stand to leeward. 

Ralph's pack harness was one of those with a 
head-strap or tump-line; and before he stepped 
aboard the raft he slipped his arms free and arranged 
the broad tump over his forehead. 



“The side logs separated beneath Tim’s feet.” 




























TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 47 


“What's the idea?” demanded Tim. “Shoulders 
tired?” 

“'Course not. Only if you steer us into an upset, 
I can throw off my pack.” 

“ Catch me toyin' to get ducked! ” said the younger 
boy. 

The voyageurs each clung fast to a pole, with 
which they had no difficulty in shoving off and 
fending their crude craft from the passing ledges. 

For perhaps ten minutes all went well, and Tim 
had just started a shout of glee when, suddenly, 
the raft bumped squarely into a submerged rock, 
and, in the twinkling of an eye, the withe that bound 
the forward end together came untied and one of 
the side logs separated beneath Tim's feet, dropping 
him into the water between them. That would not 
have been so serious in itself, but Ralph's weight 
on the other end caused the loosened log to rise in 
air, and as Ralph pitched off backwards, Tim got 
a blow on the head from the errant log that knocked 
him unconscious. 


CHAPTER V 
“Good Injun” 

Ralph saw the danger instantly. With great, 
telling strokes he was at Tim's side, jerking him 
from beneath the raft before he had gone down a 
second time. 

Luckily for all concerned, his tump-line had slid 
from his forehead at the moment of his backward 
vault, and freed him from the pack-strap with the 
cumbering blanket. It was now a matter of grabbing 
Tim by the collar and clinging to the raft to get his 
breath. Then, rolling him on his back, Ralph 
struck out for shore, swimming on his back with 
Tim's head on his chest. 

The distance was not great, and Ralph could swim 
like a fish. Even at that, he made slow progress, 
and was almost losing heart when at length he felt 
the ground rise up to meet him. Another pull, and 
they were safe. 

It was now a matter of the first aid treatment 
in which every Boy Scout is drilled, and in perhaps 
eight minutes Tim began to revive. 

“My head hurts,” he moaned, and closed his eyes 
48 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 49 


again. But Ralph's fears were lightened. Tim had 
an ugly welt on the side of his head, but he would 
be all right, after he had rested. 

The sun was already low in the sky, and Ralph 
decided, after cutting another pole and rescuing 
the blanket, which he could see at the bottom of a 
pool, to build a rousing good fire and see what he 
could devise to keep them warm while blanket and 
clothing were drying. 

Ordinarily a heap of dry leaves stacked up against 
the leeward side of a fallen log would have made 
a good bed for a rainless night, with a little fire 
built in front. A flat bowlder against which the 
heat might be reflected down upon them would have 
been better than a log. 

The major portion of their clothing was steaming 
before the fire, and it would take the drenched 
blanket at least all night to become fit to sleep in. 

Tim was for drowsing off “any old way," but not 
so the fat boy. He knew it would not do, for Tim 
at least. “Which way does the wind blow?" he 
wondered, tossing up a pinch of dust. 

“Is no wind," decided Tim, with a glance at the 
way their smoke rose. “But it most generally 
blows from the East a night like this." In his 
actual experience in the Big Woods he could better 
his comrade, for all the latter's theory. 

There being no bowlder handy for a windbreak, 
Ralph prowled about till he found a big fallen log 
of green wood. A recent storm must have uprooted 


50 


LOST RIVER 


it, he thought. Lopping off the branches on the 
under side, he leveled it to the ground. 

He next raked up the leaves from a place large 
enough to bunk on, along the leeward side of the log. 
He strewed the space with brush and set it afire, 
careful not to let the flame spread beyond the 
boundaries of a six-foot square. The log itself, being 
sound, caught only in spots here and there on its 
bark, and was easily quenched with a handful of 
moss. 

Tim watched lazily, but Ralph asked no help. 

For half an hour he kept the fire going. Then 
taking a handful of green brush, he raked the red 
embers off into the cook-fire, and going over the 
place inch by inch with a cake of wet moss, he care¬ 
fully put out every spark that remained. 

“There, now, you—!” and he threw the moss 
at Tim, shivering over the fire. “Nursie’s got your 
bedroom all warmed for you. Come on and help 
make the bed!” 

First they dragged in four down logs and staked 
them in a rectangle to keep the leaves in place. 
For springs, Tim knew the value of a thick layer 
of balsam branchlets as long as his arm. As Ralph 
stacked a supply of these beside him, he packed 
them in, beginning at the head end, where he laid 
a row against the log, under side uppermost to 
make them more springy. 

“I'll bet Fve done this before ever you joined the 
Boy Scouts,” said Tim. “Anyway, if you want to 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 51 


sleep good, you leave it to me.” And he rammed the 
butt ends into the ground, “so's they won't poke 
you in the ribs." 

After that he mattressed the inclosure with a 
thick layer of fans of half the length. Then as a 
final touch of luxury, he took just the soft tips and 
stuck them absolutely upright, as thick as he could 
crowd them. 

“Don't cut 'em," he called to Ralph, who was 
trying to collect the browse with his axe. And 
Tim showed him how it might be snapped off with 
a quick turn of the wrist. 

“There, now, we're all right if it doesn't rain," 
Ralph declared. 

“It won't rain to-night," promised Tim, gazing 
at the yellow moon sailing unchecked through a 
sea of stars. “We had a red sunset, on top o' 
that. I'm goin' to tumble in, anyway, rain or no 
rain." And he did so. 

“ Ugh! I wish we had that blanket," he grumbled, 
huddling his knees under his chin. 

Ralph flung the drying blanket over his scantily 
attired companion. 

“Ow! Take it off!" yelled Tim. “It's worse 
'n nothing at all." And he flung the offending 
article at Ralph with such practiced aim that the 
fat boy was completely wet-blanketed. 

“Here," Tim sprung to his feet, “cut some more 
browse, and I'll show you how to be 'a good Injun.'" 
Trimming a couple of little five-foot poles, he 


52 


LOST RIVER 


laid them lengthwise of the bed, one where each 
boy would lie. 

“ Little stuff first, this time,” he directed, as Ralph 
staggered back with an ax-handle load of hem¬ 
lock. This Tim spread in a thick layer, weighting 
it down with a few heavier branchlets. “Now come 
here and crawl in,” and Tim grasped one of the 
two little poles and raised it at the head end till 
Ralph had inserted himself between the two layers 
of the browse. He then crawled in himself, raising 
the remaining pole the necessary crack. 

“Um!” sniffed Ralph blissfully, as his tired body 
sank into the fragrant evergreens. “It’s as warm 
as anything, too.” 

“It's toasty! ” sighed Tim, half asleep. 

The ground was dry and warm to start with, and 
the boughs kept the heat in it till nearly morning. 
The log behind cut off the wind that rose in the night, 
and before the little fire had died out, Ralph crawled 
out and piled on more fuel, — enough to last till 
morning. 

When the first birds began announcing the coming 
of the dawn, the pair awakened thoroughly ready for 
the new day, — except for the soreness of Tim's 
head, — to find dry clothes hanging beside the ashes 
of their night fire. 

But not before they had raced each other to the 
brook and plunged tingling and glowing for a breath¬ 
taking moment beneath a crystal pool. 

Ralph emerged dancing like a wild thing. “Oh, 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 53 


boy!” he yelled, “I’m hungry. I could eat a 
dozen trout all myself.” 

“You could if you caught 'em,” challenged Tim. 
“I can take care of all I catch, myself.” Their 
combined efforts had soon proven both statements. 

“But I can't make out yet what river we're on,” 
Tim kept repeating. Ralph, too, pondered the 
matter, as day after day slipped by without his 
catching sight of a landmark that looked familiar. 
They put a raft together again, however, — one 
built on similar lines to the first, but more securely 
bound, — and poled their way painstakingly down¬ 
stream. 

“There, now I know I've never seen that rock 
ledge before,” Tim would exclaim. “I tell you 
what it is : we are certainly not on Dead River, — 
nor Moose, either, — and we are not on the Ken- 
nebago or we'd have come out on the Rangeley 
Lakes by this time.” 

“Don't believe there's any doubt whatever that 
we crossed those woods above the head of the 
Kennebago, and struck the Margalloway,” said 
Ralph, who carried the vacation map as clear in his 
mind as he did that of his own home town. “Your 
Dad would naturally think you'd gone off in the 
other direction. Remember, those Indians saw us 
start that way! They'll search everywhere but 
here. If that’s the answer, it only means we'll 
come out all right as soon as we've done about a 
hundred miles of this, so we may as well stop worry- 


54 


LOST RIVER 


ing and make a vacation of it. Let's call it ‘Lost 
River.'" Tim agreed. Ralph began counting all 
the Scout honors to which he would now be eligible. 

Tim was uneasy for fear his father might have 
given them up for good. That made him anxious 
to hurry through and set such fears at rest. 

“The main thing just now, though," he told his 
comrade, “is to keep from starving, and of course 
to avoid accidents away up here where we couldn't 
get help." 

“Right you are, Timmy," and Ralph started 
poling through the riffles that were now approaching. 

That night they stacked a bed of dry leaves be¬ 
tween two overhanging rocks, which would reflect 
the heat of their night fire back upon them bliss¬ 
fully. 

This time there was no stream small enough to 
dam for their trout net, and both boys were famished 
for meat after their long day on the river. 

“Let's snare a rabbit, or something, and have it 
for breakfast," Tim suggested, and the idea met with 
hearty approval from the stout boy. 

Tim therefore borrowed Ralph's shoe strings to 
supplement his own, and made in one a loop just 
large enough for a hare to poke its head through, 
with a few inches left over to suspend the loop. 
Searching about till he found one of the little runways 
that rabbits make in a briar patch, he cut a willow 
stick as thick as his thumb and as long as his arm, 
and bent it over the runway in an arch, sharpening 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 55 


the ends and driving them firmly into the ground. 
Next he trimmed the end of a maple seedling for 
a spring-pole, making sure that it would come, when 
bent, just over this arch, and to the spring-pole he 
tied the free end of the noose. Next he cut a stick 
the height of the arch, trimmed one end to a wedge- 
shaped point, and tied a handful of juicy Indian 
cucumber roots — on which he had sprinkled a little 
of their “salt” — to the middle. The other end he 
set upright on the ground just far enough behind the 
arch for the bunny to have to stretch his neck 
through the noose to reach it. 

Now the only question was how to fasten the 
noose so that it would be released the instant the 
hare touched the bait. So while Ralph held the 
bait-stick in place, the backwoods boy trimmed 
another stick to a point and asked Ralph to hold it 
with the sharpened end just touching the top of the 
bait-stick at a right angle, and the other end just 
under the arch. Drawing the spring-pole down to 
the arch, he then fastened the horizontal stick in 
place in a loop of the noose string. It would now 
require but a touch of the bait to release the spring 
pole, and set their breakfast swinging in mid-air, 
with the noose tightening about its throat at every 
kick. 

“I alius hate to do it,” said Tim. “I wouldn't 
eat a rabbit for anything if I had anything else to 
eat.” 

“Nor I,” agreed Ralph. “But berries and mush- 


56 


LOST RIVER 


rooms aren't exactly filling. Neither are these pot 
herbs of yours, and I declare a fellow needs something 
to work on, the pace we're hitting." 

It was a night of stars and a sickle moon, and a 
wind that sang drowsily in the tree tops; and the 
tired lads slept dreamlessly. By morning the sky 
had filled with puffy little wind clouds, and the river 
was broken into tiny white-capped wavelets. 

Sure enough, there was a young rabbit in their 
snare, and when they had beheaded, skinned and 
drawn the animal, and cut out the waxy glands that 
lie just where the forelegs join the body, they 
washed it thoroughly, let it soak for half an hour, 
and boiled it with their “salt,” and enough wild 
onion to take away some of the gamey flavor. 

“It'll be better to-night or to-morrow, what's left 
of it,” said Tim, “because we'd really ought to have 
waited and let it hang for a day or two. My, how 
I wish we had a bit of bacon for it!” 

“We'll do that way some time,” said Ralph. 
“Funny thing, I'd never touch this kind of fare 
back home, but in the woods you get so everlastingly 
ravenous that almost anything tastes good. I've 
heard of men even relishing musk-rat.” 

“Yes, and skunk. I really like young squirrel, 
though.” 

The day that followed was one long panorama of 
woodsy shore line, the unknown river winding on 
and on mysteriously before them, the breath of the 
pines in their nostrils, the call of birds in their ears, 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 57 


and every here and there a dash of flower color to 
break the green. 

Once they spied a deer and her fawns wading 
among the lily pads, and in the shadow of the curving 
bank they slipped up on her so noiselessly that the 
boys had a good look before the doe gave her startled 
“Hew!” and splashed back into the woods, with 
white flag raised for the fawns to follow. 

Once, too, they saw what looked like the end of a. 
floating log, but which Tim pronounced a bear, 
making its way in leisurely fashion across down¬ 
stream. Musk-rats darted on ahead of their busy 
poles, leaving arrow-shaped ripples in their wake. 
And once an otter came sliding down a bank worn 
smooth by much coasting. 

Thus the days slipped by in a miracle of fair 
weather. 

The boys were never quite alone at mealtime. 
First there were the crows, one of whose number 
was sure to spy them out and caw an invitation to 
all his friends for leagues around. These inky 
fellows would then circle round and round over¬ 
head, eyeing every mouthful that was eaten while 
they waited for a chance at the leavings. 

The red squirrels, too, used to chuckle from tree 
to tree the news that here was a feast worth waiting 
for. And the white-footed wood-mice scampered 
about camp, after they thought the boys were asleep, 
garnering what crumbs had been overlooked by 
their bolder neighbors. 


58 


LOST RIVER 


Then one night Ralph's dreams were interwoven 
with a persistent sound of gnawing, accompanied 
by a singing little nasal grunt for all the world like 
a door creaking in its hinges. A loud “Scat!” 
from Tim brought him back to consciousness with 
a jerk. And there in the exact middle of their 
larder sat a young porcupine chewing up their 
birch-bark berry pail. He minded Tim's command 
no more than if he had been deaf, but continued 
gnawing happily on their hoarded stores. It took 
a pole to prod him out of camp, — a pole which the 
prickly fellow slapped full of quills with his barbed 
tail. He came back twice again that night, and in 
the morning Ralph found the top of his left shoe 
gnawed to a pulp. 

“You ought to have taken the ax to him,” he 
grumbled. 

“Why, how could he know that he didn't have as 
much right to that shoe as you did?” teased the 
other. “All's free in the woods.” 

They had one visitor, though, that came by day 
and made himself perfectly welcome in their midst. 
That was the Moose Bird, — Whiskey Jack, Tim 
called him, after the manner of lumbermen, — a 
slate-colored bird with white throat and forehead. 

This friendly bird used to watch from some over¬ 
hanging branch till he could dip down and grab a 
choice morsel; and so swiftly did he perform the 
feat that he could actually help himself from their 
birch-bark plates and get away with it. 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 59 

“I'll bet I could catch one of those fellows with 
my bare hands,” boasted Ralph. But day followed 
day and he failed to demonstrate. Then one morn¬ 
ing Tim had a peculiar gleam in his eye. “Tell 
you what, old Scout, you want to try putting salt 
on their tails,” he teased. “Watch me!” And he 
began stalking a young Moose Bird that hopped 
along the ground a short distance away. 

Ralph watched disdainfully as Tim approached 
and dropped a pinch of their hickory ash on his 
quarry. Then he opened his eyes wide; for Tim 
actually had the bird in his hand. But the secret 
was bound to out. The fat fledgling had a broken 
wing. 

Thus was Whiskey Jack added to the family 
circle, for with wing set and bound to his side, and 
two boys ever ready to stuff him with good things, 
the youngster exhibited not the slightest inclination 
to part company with them; and when finally his 
wing was healed and the bandage removed, he had 
become so tame that they could not have left 
him behind had they tried, for when he was not 
circling about overhead, he was riding on Tim's 
shoulder. 

One night, just as the sun set behind rising clouds, 
they came to a little spring in the hillside, and 
pitched camp. 

Ralph, ever heavy on his feet, — besides which 
his shoes were giving out, — was ready to drop under 
the lee of an overhanging bowlder and “call it off” 


60 


LOST RIVER 


for the night. For his ankles were swollen pain¬ 
fully and his heels were blistered. 

“Now I know what they mean by a tenderfoot,” 
he groaned. 

But Tim, reading storm signals in the scudding 
clouds, hustled around till he had roofed over a 
snug shelter between three big bowlders. It gave 
them a sort of cave dwelling of two rooms, open on 
the south and west, with a slant that would shed 
rain where the roof stretched down to the smaller 
rocks. Laying the roof poles scarce a foot apart 
and covering these with overlapping sheets of birch- 
bark, he weighted it all down with stones, as big 
as he could lift, laid over the ends of the poles. 
They built their night-fire just outside the southern 
entryway, and for once the backwoods boy had the 
foresight to lay in a good supply of dry fuel against 
the expected downpour, including a big armful of 
willow for a smokeless cook-fire, that they might 
tend it under cover. 

“Looks as if we might be in for several days of 
it,” he prophesied. 

“Hurray!” shouted Ralph. “Then it would be 
foolish to go on. We wouldn’t make anything by 
it, with our clothes always wet and the blanket 
heavy as lead.” 

“Guess you’ll be able to make faster time, once 
you get your feet healed up, anyway,” ceded Tim. 
Even as he spoke, there was a swaying of tree 
trunks and a roaring of winds down the ravine, and 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 61 


the first big drops of the expected storm came pelt¬ 
ing down. 

It was finally decided that while Tim brought in 
a reserve supply of fish, Ralph was to "keep the 
home fires burning ” and dry the fish on a willow 
hoop, so that they need not stop to forage, once 
they got under way again. 

With a good browse bed underneath him and the 
warmth of the night-fire reflected back from a screen 
of green wood that he had logged up on the far side 
of the blaze, Ralph was just beginning to enjoy the 
delicious languor that follows a day in the open, 
(Tim being already dead to the world), when he was 
chilled broad awake by the sound of weird maniacal 
laughter. 

Now he had become used to the harsh “peent” 
of the night-hawk, and the rasping screech of the 
owl, and the snort of the startled deer. But this 
was a sound that seemed to come straight out of 
the sky, — a shrill, piercing sound like nothing he 
had ever heard before. It seemed more human 
than animal, — yet inhuman, unearthly. But strain 
his eyes as he might, he could see nothing but inky 
blackness beyond the circle of their camp-fire. 
Yet his scalp prickled as the awful sound rose again 
through the rising storm, — this time seemingly 
even nearer than before. 


CHAPTER VI 
Loon Pond 

The weird cry came again, swooping down at 
them out of the black sky. Ralph involuntarily 
clutched Tim by the shoulder, and the tightness of 
his grip awakened the backwoods boy. 

“What is it?” gasped Tim, sure that something 
dreadful was about to happen, though all he could 
see beyond the circle of their night-fire was the 
engulfing darkness. 

“Nothing, I guess,” bluffed Ralph with a shiver. 
But Tim was not to be bluffed that way. 

Again came that swelling shriek, whose wild, 
weird notes floated down to them, seemingly out 
of the very clouds. Tim laughed. “Loons!” he 
exclaimed in relief. “And you're another.” 

In a very few minutes both boys were sound 
asleep. The next morning, hardly had the first 
wisps of vapor begun curling away through the 
black walls of the forest than Tim was abroad on an 
exploring expedition. For perhaps half an hour he 
puzzled his way through the gray mist that rose 
smokily from this pocket of the hills; then he gave 
a shout of discovery. 


62 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 63 


Lying cupped in the dip between two ridges lay 
an inland pond, on which water-birds were calling 
through the silent mist. 

Once again there rose that very peal of unearthly 
laughter, as two black specks came swerving down 
out of the murky sky, to skim noisily over the still 
pond, half flying, half running, as they churned the 
water into foam. First one, then another, made a 
sudden dive, each, apparently, working its wings 
under water, to reappear, with a wriggling fish in 
its bill, which it flipped into the air with a sudden 
toss of the head, to catch as it fell in its widened 
jaws, and gulp down head first. 

Tim watched motionless, his eyes dancing, not 
daring to go for Ralph lest the show be over when 
they returned. But presently the city boy came 
“pussy-footing” it through the mist to his side. 
Even that slight sound caused the loons to go 
hurtling back into the sky for a time; but just as 
the boys were about to give it up in disappointment, 
there was another of the long-drawn, quavering 
cries, “Wah-hoo-o-o-o! Wah-hoo-o-o-o! ” 

Through the dissolving mist they could make 
out the forms of a pair of great birds, twice as large 
as ducks, one of them slate-gray, lighter underneath, 
and the other a striking black and white speckled 
effect above, and snow white beneath, with a black 
head, and as they later noted, two white bars across 
his throat. 

Again the great birds dove for fish, after swimming 


64 


LOST RIVER 


about in circles with ripples of water showering over 
their backs. But this time they carried their catch 
to a tiny bit of island where a crude collection of 
sticks could just be made out beneath the over¬ 
hanging bushes. The pair seemed actually to stand 
upright in the water on their short, stiff tails. 

The boys' eyes shone. Each privately resolved 
to have a look at that nest before they journeyed 
farther. But just now there was something else 
to watch. The parent birds returned, doubtless 
urged by the pipings that now floated across the 
quiet water from the hungry nestlings. This time 
the mother loon dove so near the boys' hiding- 
place that they could see that she did use her funny 
wings to fly under water, the more speedily to over¬ 
take the darting form of her finny prey. 

This was one of the reasons the boys decided that 
so long as the weather remained threatening and un¬ 
certain, they would camp for a few days, getting 
what fun they could out of their enforced sojourn 
in the wilderness. 

And when, later that same forenoon, Ralph swam 
out to the bit of island (scarce large enough to pitch 
a tent on), Tim floating in his wake, with a careful 
paddling motion of his hands and the sure knowledge 
that Ralph was there to rescue him, should need 
arise, — the delighted boys found two grotesque 
little fat chicks, slate-gray above like the mother 
bird, whitish beneath, who tumbled awkwardly 
about when the boys set them on the ground, piping 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 65 


a little high-pitched wail that must surely bring the 
mother. The boys laid them hastily back in their 
nest and made for shore. Those giant birds would 
be no mean antagonists if they really set out to 
clamp their bills into one's naked flesh. None too 
soon did they get away from the reedy islet; for 
down the rising breeze sounded again that mad, half 
laughing, half melancholy call: “Wu-loo-o-o! — 
Wu-loo-o-o!" 

As a gnawing emptiness within reminded the boys 
that they had had no breakfast, they were more 
interested in a very different sort of nest that Ralph 
nearly stumbled over, concealed as it was in the 
tufts of long grass on the shallower side of the tiny 
lakelet. For here were nine large eggs of an olive- 
buff tint, which Tim pronounced to be duck's eggs. 

“What kind?" demanded Ralph, when they had 
tested them in water and found enough for break¬ 
fast that were still sufficiently fresh. And from his 
knowledge of hotel menus he enumerated : “Canvas- 
back, Mallard, or what?" 

“Don't know," admitted Tim. “But I've never 
heard Pop say anything about Canvasbacks, though 
the sports are alius askin' 'bout 'em." 

“Well, what kind did they get? What did they 
look like?" 

“Oh, brown, I guess, — green heads, blue on their 
wings." 

“Then they're just Mallards. Canvasbacks 
have red heads." 


66 


LOST RIVER 


“We're lucky all the same.” 

“Sure we are. Only we haven't got 'em yet!" 

That was only too true. Though the watching 
boys had a tantalizing glimpse of the handsome 
fellows tipping into the shallow water for the tender 
grasses, or wading about the edge of the pond 
(possibly in search of the fresh-water clams so often 
found in sedgy ponds), there seemed no way of 
adding one of them to their larder. 

All they could do was to listen to their harsh quack¬ 
ing and the puddling of their feet in the shallows. 

The owls were better equipped for a duck hunt, 
however, — they judged that night, when they heard 
an alarmed quack, followed immediately by the sight 
of a great gray shape flapping its noiseless way above 
the rim of tree-tops with something drooping prone 
in its claws. And the next morning Tim, search¬ 
ing the ground through the bordering woods for the 
round pellets that always drop from a tree inhabited 
by an owl, found feathered evidence in proof of the 
night's hunting. 

Ralph, meantime, was bathing his puffy feet in 
hot water and making up lost sleep, — a sleep from 
which Tim barely roused him at dusk to listen to 
the lowing of a cow moose, rising into a quavering 
high note, then gradually dying away to the same 
low pitch, as she — possibly — called to her stray¬ 
ing calf. Though the sound was weird enough 
in the twilight, the boys saw no cause for alarm. 
She would not come near. 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 67 

There was also the sharp little bark of the fox, 
the loud “Peent” of the night-hawk, the deep and 
dismal “Whoo-whoo” of the great horned owl, and 
the shrill squeak of the raccoon. But, cutting the 
now familiar slap-slap of Lost River — as Ralph 
had put it down on his birch-bark map — against 
the rocks, there were odd, unaccountable scufflings 
and squeakings all about them, and every now and 
again a shrill whistle that not even the backwoods boy 
could account for. 

The next night, when the sky had paled to all 
but one great star above where the sun would rise, 
Tim left Ralph sleeping while he slipped quietly 
back to the concealing bushes that rimmed the 
pond. For the whistle seemed to come from that 
direction. 

He found a little family of otters coasting down a 
muddy bank into the water. He crept back and 
aroused his protesting bunkie, — who, however, 
when finally awake, would not have missed the sight 
for worlds. 

Queer, furry little beasts they were, — these sleek, 
shadowy, playful creatures, with their bulldog heads 
and little close-fitting ears, their short web-footed 
legs and their broad, tapering tails. First they 
would make a few running leaps, then hurl them¬ 
selves on to the now muddy slide on their chests, 
forefeet bent backwards, and coast down the 
declivity, landing in the water with a rebounding 
splash. 


68 


LOST RIVER 


That the sport was not a new one was attested by 
the deeply worn trough in the mud bank. 'Round 
and 'round they went, first one and then another, — 
two big ones and four cubs, — sliding, swimming 
back to shore, and up the bank on their webbed 
feet, ready for another try, “belly-bumps." The 
boys wondered why the parents played with them. 

“I'm going to have one," signaled Ralph. And 
Tim nodded in complete agreement with his pur¬ 
pose as they edged their way a little nearer. But 
with necks raised like little watch-towers, the six 
otters stopped stone-still to reconnoiter till the 
faint whisper of the boys' feet had been stilled for 
perhaps ten minutes. Any one not knowing what 
they were might have taken them for so many 
stumps at the water's edge. Then two of the cubs, 
who had just brought up at the top of the slide 
when the summons to “freeze" had come, once 
more launched themselves down the incline, and, 
landing one on top of the other in the pond's edge, 
promptly locked themselves together in mock ferocity, 
rolling over and over and lashing the water with 
their powerful little tails, snarling like quarrelsome 
puppies as they sought for a bite at one another's 
jaws. In their struggles they were under water 
quite as much as they were above. 

The bitch sounded her shrill whistle of alarm, 
however, as some sixth sense, or perhaps some taint 
on the shifting breeze, warned her of alien presences. 
Then, sure-footed as only otters can be, with their 



“Landing in the water with a resounding sjrlash.” 





























































































TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 69 


splayed feet, the quarreling cubs followed up the 
muddy bank and the six disappeared in the sur¬ 
rounding dusk. 

Wait as patiently as they would the excited boys 
could catch no further glimpse of the merry family. 

But they were by no means discouraged of their 
desire for an otter pet. “We’d train him to catch 
fish for us,” laughed Ralph. And searching about 
in the moist earth, after sun-up, they found the 
queer, splayed foot-prints leading from the pond’s 
edge to the face of a seemingly unsurmountable 
cliff; there the foot-prints disappeared, as com¬ 
pletely as if the entire otter family had suddenly 
sprouted wings and flown away. Nor could they 
see the slightest indication of a cave. “They must 
be some climbers,” marveled Ralph. 

The little lake was full of fish, and the boys found 
the shore lined with the nests of water-birds. Though 
they never once forgot that they were there to lay 
in an extra food supply before starting on again 
with the raft, and though they were equally de¬ 
termined to catch a baby otter if such were possible, 
they stumbled upon many an interesting sight on 
the borders of these wilderness waters. In their 
search for food they found themselves studying 
every feature of their new environment like two 
Crusoes. 

A loud, harsh rattle that they could hear, this 
quiet weather, full half a mile away, drew them to 
the shore their second afternoon at “Loon Pond.” 


70 


LOST RIVER 


The peculiar call being repeated as they ap¬ 
proached, their eyes were drawn to a large blue and 
white bird, much larger than a jay, that seemed to 
dive into the water from an overhanging limb. 
She came up with a little fish in her long blue bill, 
and immediately disappeared, seemingly into the 
very mud of the bank. 

A few minutes later she again appeared, and took 
her place on the overhanging limb, watching the 
water beneath her. Again she dove; and, again, 
with her catch, she darted apparently straight into 
the earth of the bank. The boys were puzzled. 
Shifting their position a little, they found that they 
could look directly at the place where she always 
disappeared. Then they saw her return, backing 
out of her hole in the bank and whirling about like 
a flash. 

Patiently the boys waited, determined to solve 
the mystery of the mud bank. Then Tim crept 
forward and thrust his hand into the entrance hole. 
The mother-bird flapped her protests about his 
head, but as he had half expected, he drew out — a 
fledgling! And a funnier specimen the boys had 
never seen, — a pin-feathery little fellow, as prickly 
looking as a porcupine. 

But as the anxious mother shortly demonstrated 
the sharpness of her long bill on Tim's finger, the 
latter was glad enough to thrust the young king¬ 
fisher back into his hole. 

That afternoon it rained hard, and both boys 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 71 


were glad to rest in their camp between the rocks, 
and finish drying Tim's willow-hoops of trout. 

They were heartily sorry that they had chosen 
their camp-site in a ravine, for the cold air seemed 
to draw down this natural air channel, and the draft 
made the smoke of their camp-fire shift straight 
into their faces. Besides, they had set up their 
Lares and Penates on a clay soil that the rain soon 
converted into sticky mud. 

“Look here," said Tim, midway of the afternoon, 
“if we're going to lay by for another day, I'm going 
to scout around for a better place." 

“You'll get soaked." 

“All right, I'll get soaked. But I'll sleep dry, 
you bet! That's what counts with dis chile." 

Ralph whistled indifferently. The present loca¬ 
tion had, after all, been Tim's choice, and he was 
loath to exert himself further. 

Tim drew a long breath and made the plunge 
into the wet. He wanted an open spot somewhat 
elevated from the surrounding slope, so there would 
be good natural drainage. He wanted it far enough 
back from the river so there would be no possibility 
of the water rising over the flats with the torrents 
that were now pouring into it from a dozen rivulets. 
He therefore searched till he found what seemed to 
have been the high-water mark, a broken line of 
leaves and litter that had been washed up earlier 
in the year. He didn't want to go back too far 
from their water supply. 


72 


LOST RIVER 


He found an elevation within easy reach of a 
fallen tree that would supply them with firewood, — 
a birch whose limbs could be hacked off without 
much effort and dragged back to camp to be used, 
Indian fashion, arranged like the spokes of a wheel, 
with the butts piled on top of one another. As 
these burned away, they would shove the spokes in 
closer. That would save a lot of chopping. 

The bark would serve for kindling, even in its 
wet state. But when he looked about for any dead 
trees that might come thundering down on them in 
the night, he found his knoll in an unsafe position, 
as there was a wind-broken trunk to windward, and 
a leaning tree which overhung too closely from the 
hillside. He smiled grimly as he thought of the 
surprise they would have had, if they had changed 
their quarters, only to have a tree come crashing 
down on them in the night. That is, if they had 
survived to laugh at anything. 

He searched again, shivering in the wet wind. 
Hurray! Here was a hillside mostly bare, where 
at some time the rock ledge had been washed clean 
of soil, perhaps in a spring freshet. Not fifty paces 
above the river bank there was a thicket of ever¬ 
greens, and on the downward side of this natural 
windbreak he picked out a comparatively level, 
gravelly stretch which seemed warm and., quiet 
because the air current from above leaped the 
thicket, as a stone leaps rebounding from some 
obstruction on a hillside. 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 73 


Here, too, was a fat pine knot that could easily 
be dragged into camp, once the overhanging fringe 
of pines had been made more wet-proof by an inter¬ 
lacing of lopped branches. This stump was heavy 
with resin and would burn despite the rain. They 
could snap off all the dry, dead branches they 
needed from beneath the pine trees for kindling. 

There was also a convenient balsam whose green 
trunk could be cut into four lengths and staked into 
a wall on the opposite side of their night-fire, so 
that it would reflect the heat back upon them with¬ 
out itself igniting. Tim congratulated himself 
further as he reflected that its branches could then 
be stripped for a thick browse bed, and that thus 
their comfort would be assured. 

Tim returned to the old camp between the rocks, 
and found Ralph trying to replenish the fire with a 
couple of black, shiny lengths of pitch pine, which 
would blaze up brilliantly green for an instant, then 
die out completely. Tim watched silently for as 
much as fifteen minutes, then the mirth he could no 
longer repress gave away his presence, and Ralph 
made a dash for him. 

“I'm going to duck you for that!”—and he 
rushed the smaller boy towards the river. “You 
need a swimming lesson anyway.” In the wres¬ 
tling match that followed, both boys got thoroughly 
warm. Then they shifted camp, and Ralph, zealous 
to make things cozier, started bringing in a hem¬ 
lock knot. Tim stopped him just in time or he would 


74 LOST RIVER 

have ruined the ax for good and all on the hard and. 
worthless wood. 5$ 

“ As an axman you'd make a good school-teacher/^ 
said Tim. ^ 

Ralph strove to remember what he had read in' 
his book of woodcraft. But the trouble was that 
he knew the names of trees he could not identify 
on sight. 

He was now more than ever determined to show 
the backwoods boy some way in which mere theo¬ 
retical knowledge might come in handy. But the 
way did not at once appear. 

Instead, he started juggling with ax and open 
knife, a feat calculated to inspire Tim with respect 
for his prowess in at least one direction. But as Tim 
warned him, he soon cut his hand and Tim had to 
dress it with resin from a balsam blister. 

However, Ralph was to have a small revenge 
even sooner than he had anticipated. 

Just before turning in for the night, he had gone 
scouting for a fresh handful of dry pine for their 
breakfast fire, when Tim was startled by hearing 
a low wailing sound that he recognized as neither 
bird nor beast that he had ever heard before. 
“O-o-o-o! O-o-o-o!” it sounded, now on one side 
of the surrounding darkness, now another. And he 
wished Ralph were there. For though Tim would 
never have admitted he was superstitious about 
anything (except the number thirteen), he had heard 
many tales recounted of haunted woods and haunted 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 75 


houses, and banshees and the spirits of departed 
bandits; and certainly in all his life before he had 
never heard anything quite like this. Then — his 
scalp began to prickle. What was that glowing 
thing coming towards him through the night? First 
it seemed just two spots of green, unearthly light. 
Then — he saw a pair of glowing hands approach¬ 
ing! 


CHAPTER VII 
The Baby ’Coon 

Straight toward him through the darkness came 
those ghostly hands, outstretched, with a weird 
greenish light glancing off the outspread fingers. 
Then came a wailing shriek. And Tim, despite his 
efforts at self-control, shrank back to the fire with 
knees trembling. 

A moment more and the light faded suddenly, 
and Ralph stumbled into the circle of the firelight, 
hands still outstretched, howling with laughter. 

“What is it, Timmy my boy?” he inquired solic¬ 
itously. 

“ What is it ? I didn’t say anything. I see you’ve 
been pawing ’round in a clump o’ Jack-o’-lanterns.” 

“Of what?” having never before heard the name 
of the phosphorescent fungus. “I saw an old stump 
that glowed in the dark, and I laid a bet with myself 
that you’d be more scared of a ghost than I was of 
the loons,” and he laughed again. “That was one 
on you, you old piece of cheese! Eh?” 

“ It will be one on you if you don’t wash that off 
your hands before you eat. It’s deadly poison!” 

76 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 77 


And Tim waited only till Ralph stooped at the river 
to douse his companion’s risibilities. 

The rain was over by morning, but as Tim’s fish 
were not yet dried, the boys decided to spend another 
night at the Pond. So good did it feel to bask on 
the sunny rocks that both boys drowsed the after¬ 
noon away. Supper-time found the castaways 
much refreshed. 

Ralph had seen some diminutive bearlike tracks 
in the wet ground along the margin of the Pond, 
which he surmised to be ’coon tracks. He therefore 
proposed to creep forward softly and hide in a clump 
of willows, till the moon lighted up the open patches, 
when they could watch a certain tall old chestnut 
tree with a hole just below where the first branch 
forked. 

It was a still, windless night. The tiny lake was 
as glassy as a mirror under the white moon, and the 
bordering trees stood silvery gray against a back¬ 
ground of black velvet. The stars shone brilliantly. 

"I’D bet if I had a book I could read,” whispered 
Ralph. 

“Sh!” breathed Tim. 

For perhaps half an hour they waited, startled 
two or three times by the sudden hoot of an owl, 
followed soon after by the squeak of a despairing 
wood-mouse. 

Then their ears pricked at the sound of a faint 
scratching and whining that seemed to come from 
the big chestnut tree. It was as if tiny claws were 


78 


LOST RIVER 


scrambling up inside the trunk, their owners whim¬ 
pering with excitement. 

From the opening that showed black in the moon¬ 
light, a plump gray form came gliding along a limb. 
As it paused in a spot of shadow, the boys could see 
the gleam of a pair of bright eyes. Following the 
limb back to her doorway, Madame 'Coon took a 
final survey, with her foxy pointed face in its black 
mask clearly outlined, and her ringed tail adding 
further testimony to her pedigree. 

There must have been a command, — perhaps de¬ 
livered by telepathy, — for in a moment three pairs 
of gleaming little eyes appeared in the opening in the 
tree trunk. Then the old 'coon backed down, tail 
first, swaying her head from side to side like a bear 
as she tried to watch both behind and before her. 

The boys pinched each other ecstatically, scarce 
daring to breathe. 

No sooner was Madame 'Coon halfway down than 
she was followed by a baby 'coon, and he was fol¬ 
lowed by a second, — the droll fellows mimicking her 
every move. 

At the foot she stopped, looked up and gave a 
peculiar cry, for a tiny pair of eyes still gleamed in 
the mouth of the hole. She was answered by a wee, 
birdlike whine, and a foxy, alert little face was thrust 
out into the moonlight, — a comic face, with its 
black patches across the eyes like a burglar's mask. 

The mother coaxed and commanded, but still the 
littlest cub held back. Then he crept gracefully 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 79 


out on the limb as she had done, and a more delight¬ 
ful rascal the boys thought they never had laid eyes 
on. It was at this moment that an idea popped into 
both their heads at once, though they did not dare 
voice it at the time. They must have him for a pet! 

But Madame had darted up the tree, perhaps 
with intent to give him a punishing nip. Instantly 
he began backing down in proper order. Arrived 
at ground level, though, — where the other cubs 
began following single file (almost in her very foot¬ 
prints ), as she headed for the Pond, — the baby rac¬ 
coon leaped to his mother's back and stole a ride, 
with claws clinging to her long fur. 

On arrival at the water's edge, he hopped off and 
took his place in the fluffy, gray procession. He 
was evidently not so unfailingly obedient as woods 
babies generally are, and once separated from his 
mother, the boys felt they would have no trouble in 
capturing him. They began to despair of ever find¬ 
ing him without his natural protector, as they saw 
how closely the little family imitated its leader in 
every move she made. 

Clever as a monkey with her paws, she first nosed 
out a nest of turtle's eggs, and digging up one of these 
delicacies with her handlike paws, washed it by 
sousing it up and down in the pond, then seated her¬ 
self with her back to a bowlder and began eating it 
daintily. 

First one, then another little 'coon dug out an 
egg for himself and likewise washed it and sat him- 


80 


LOST RIVER 


self down beside her, using his paws like a monkey. 
The naughty littlest one kept looking up at his mother 
with a pert expression, as if asking if he were not a 
clever fellow. 

Then they all washed their faces and combed the 
egg out of their long whiskers. 

Next the little family spread itself out on the top 
of an overhanging bowlder and waited, claws out¬ 
spread, to pinion some unwary frog. And though 
the little ones caught nothing, the mother gave each 
a portion of her catch. Again they soused their 
food up and down in the water before setting teeth 
to the tender morsels. 

After several frogs had been consumed in this way, 
they took a nibble of grass and dug up some roots, 
which they likewise washed and ate. 

“ That's why they call the raccoon Lotor, I ex¬ 
pect, because he washes everything,” said Ralph, 
who had studied Latin. “Now watch me grab the 
little fellow.” 

“Forget it,” advised Tim, dragging his excited 
partner back. “They'll fight like all-get-out. 
There's no fighter like a 'coon — f'r its size. I've 
seen 'em hold four dogs at bay, — flat on their backs 
at that, spitting and clawing and whirling about, 
like —like—” 

“A'right, we'll try again later on,'' agreed Ralph. 
But later on the moon smiled down on two boys 
sound asleep, as oblivious of the midnight revels 
of the frog-hunters as they had been before they 



“Now watch me grab the little fellow.” 






















TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 81 


found the tiny bearlike foot-prints on the rim of 
the Pond. 

Awaking just before dawn, they saw the mother 
leave her cubs in a crevice in the rocks, while she 
went off with a huge fellow that they supposed must 
be the father 'coon, — perhaps for a real hunt, now 
that the children had had their lessons. 

Creeping softly over the rock ledges till they could 
peer down from above at the cubs, the boys could see 
a mighty wrestling match. The wrestlers growled 
in mock ferocity, in their high-pitched little voices, 
as they hugged and pommeled one another, biting 
and clawing and tumbling about like so many fat 
puppies, though more like kittens in their grace and 
litheness. They were also curiously clownlike with 
their fat bodies and short legs. 

By and by the littlest one picked up a smooth 
round stone and began to roll it about like a ball. 
That separated him somewhat from his brothers, 
who were still wrestling. Ralph's eyes began to 
gleam. But Tim pulled him back again. For 
Madame' Coon was returning. This time she brought 
a clam, and after dividing it between them, she 
spanked them up into the home tree. Then she 
kept her mousing engagement, — somewhere across 
the Pond. Suddenly, cutting into the stillness of 
the night, came the blood-curdling scream of a lynx, 
and the boys felt pretty sure that Madame would 
be too well occupied on her own account to hear the 
little one's call for help. 


82 


LOST RIVER 


A faint breeze had begun to stir, and the boys 
circled the old chestnut tree till they could approach 
with the wind in their faces, lest it carry a warning 
message to the furry children left behind in their 
nest. Ralph started to climb, but as there was no¬ 
where any foothold, he came down heavily, and 
made way for the more agile Tim. The backwoods 
boy squirmed up the trunk with feet as pliable as 
fingers. 

Reaching cautiously through the dark hole just 
beneath the first limb, he reached down till he en¬ 
countered a warm furry mass. The next instant he 
had withdrawn his hand scratched and bleeding. 
As the little 'coon gave his shrill call of one plaintive 
note, Tim could not help picturing what a full grown 
animal could do to his hands. 

“Go on, pull him out," called Ralph. Tim was 
tempted to let him take his own advice. But he 
tried again, and this time held on, dragging forth 
the wriggling mite by the tail. But again he found 
that the innocent-looking little ball of fur could 
punish, — for twisting around inside his skin, he 
suddenly presented the side on which were twenty 
claws and twice as many sharp white teeth. Tim 
let go with an exclamation, and the little 'coon ran 
out along the limb above. 

Ralph had to laugh at Tim's amazement, and at 
the ferocity of the tiny mite in gray, which now 
pointed its foxy face at Tim with eyes glittering 
angrily. 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 83 


“ Shake him off,” called Ralph. 

“ I will if you'll catch him,” and there was a pecul¬ 
iar gleam in the eyes of the backwoods boy, as one 
who should say: “He who laughs last laughs best.” 

But Tim shook. My, how he shook that limb! 
And the harder he shook, the tighter clung the 'coon. 
Then suddenly the fat little animal went hurtling 
through the air, while Ralph stood waiting with his 
coat outspread beneath. 

An instant the kittenlike cub descended through 
space, fat legs outspread. Then Ralph had a momen¬ 
tary sensation of wriggling fur, which he clutched 
with both hands, and the next instant, he was won¬ 
dering what had become of his prize, — but not be¬ 
fore the 'coon had treated his hands to the same 
demonstration as he had his first adversary's. 

Tim had slid to the ground as he succeeded in 
shaking off the little 'coon. But no sooner had his 
feet touched terra firma than he wished he had not 
left his lofty perch, for young Lotor was back again 
on the far end of the limb. 

A second time he climbed, and a second time Ralph 
tried to catch the ball of gray fur as it fell. But this 
time as the little rascal turned around inside of his 
fur, Ralph again had to let go, hands worse clawed 
than before, though he had tried a two-handed clutch 
on the back of the neck that should have kept the 
cub's jaws pointed in the right direction. 

Then Tim cut a pole just long enough to reach to 
the end of the limb. “ Now watch,” he called. “I’m 


84 


LOST RIVER 


going to give that ’coon the surprise of his life.” 
And he raised the pole and literally lifted the little 
fighter off his limb. 

This time Ralph had the luck to have his feet slip 
out from under him just as he had thrown his coat 
around the descending ’coon. Tim dropped his 
pole and scrambled into the scene of the action, ball¬ 
ing the ’coon so tightly into the coat that there was 
no wriggling out of it. Then, holding shut the im¬ 
provised bag with both hands, they carried their 
prize back to camp. 

While Ralph cut a strip from the blanket to serve 
as a leash, Tim held on for dear life. 

Once aware that he was really a prisoner, the cub 
crouched flat, ears laid back and plump sides trem¬ 
bling under Tim’s stroking hand. Then Ralph 
offered him a fish head, but the ’coon only clung to 
him with heaving sides and cold little nose striving 
to hide in his cuff, into which he whimpered like a 
child. He gradually grew more assured, however, 
and at Tim’s suggestion they tethered him to a stump 
near the river’s edge and laid the fish head beside 
him. 

The boys had nearly drowsed off when the little 
’coon picked up the fish head, and sousing it in the 
water, began crunching the morsel. The boys threw 
him another, and the new pet ate hungrily, then 
curled up on the far side of the stump, while the 
boys, at least, fell sound asleep. 

He was easy to tame. “Paw caught a young ’un 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 85 


once in a trap,” said Tim, “and he used to follow me 
around like a pup.” 

“Got him yet?” 

“No. When winter came he ran away to the 
woods to den up somewhere, and he never came 
back.” 

“Does he hibernate like a bear?” 

“Guess so.” 

“I'd have said he was more like a fox.” 

“ That's because of his looks. He's clever enough, 
though, — quite foxy in his ways.” 

“Well, he can fight, all right.” 

“And play 'possum, too.” 

“And yet he cries like a baby,” mused Ralph, 
cuddling his new acquisition into his neck and strok¬ 
ing its soft fur reassuringly. “Ouch!” he giggled, 
as the little 'coon tucked his cold nose inquiringly 
down inside his collar. 

Under the boys' united blandishments, the cub 
had lost all fear before night, and when offered a 
fish head, would seize it with both forepaws, walk¬ 
ing on his hind legs to wash it before setting to, with 
his back to a rock. 

That day they poled the raft down-stream till 
they came to a bit of a beach with a clear little spring 
where the woods shelved down steeply, — and with 
the cub's home tree so many miles away, they felt 
safe in letting him off the leash. In fact, so friendly 
had he become that, under Ralph's petting, he began 
licking the stout boy's ear. 


86 


LOST RIVER 


“Here, you!” cried he. “Don't you think I can 
wash my own ears?” 

“He knows you don't,” chortled Tim, dodging, 
as Ralph made a pass at him. 

“Yes, I'm getting regular backwoods habits, being 
with you,” the retort came back. “Here, Lotor, 
wash my fingers if you must wash something,” and 
Ralph tucked the little fellow into his pocket. And 
the 'coon, doubtless relishing the salty flavor of per¬ 
spiration, did as he was bidden. 

“Here, don't let him overeat,” cautioned Tim, 
as Ralph plied the newcomer with tidbits, till his 
sides were fairly bursting. But when the cub was 
stuffed till he could hardly waddle, he heaved a sigh 
of content and rolled up for a nap. 

The 'coon appeared to harbor no regret for the 
home he had left, as feast day followed feast day. 
And a more trusting little fellow could not have 
been found. He was soon following the boys like 
a fat puppy, — when he was not sleeping. 

When the boys went too fast or he got too tired, 
he promptly voiced his distress in a whimper so 
human and appealing that Tim was continually 
hushing Ralph and saying: “There! The baby's 
crying for you!” 

Lotor needed little assistance at mealtime, how¬ 
ever. He caught fish with his little barbed paw, 
seeming to understand exactly how he must lie in 
wait on some bowlder above a pool, till the flash of 
a shadowy form told him it was time to make a grab. 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 87 


Tim had risen early one morning and gone scout¬ 
ing for birch bark to start the breakfast fire, — it 
had rained in the night and wet all their fuel, — just 
as the rising beams of the sun began slanting up 
from the east, when he saw the ’coon backing down a 
birch tree smeared from ear to ear with egg yolk, lick¬ 
ing his sticky paws every few steps in huge delight. 
An angry twittering overhead told its own story. 
At sight of Tim, the young villain leaped to his 
shoulder and began rubbing his whiskers clean on the 
boy’s coat. 

Whiskey Jack seemed to be the little ’coon’s special 
aversion, — perhaps because of the way the Moose 
Bird would steal choice morsels from him. It was 
often far from peaceful around mealtime, with Jack’s 
hoarse jeers and the angry shrill of the raccoon; for 
Lotor always followed up one of these petty thefts by 
trying to snatch a handful of feathers out of Jack’s 
tail, — though he never quite succeeded. It finally 
came to be a sporting proposition to the boys as to 
how soon the impudent bird would “get his.” 

Thus merrily the days sped by. 

One day Tim stalked a deer to a salt-lick, and 
scraped up enough of the precious flavoring to sea¬ 
son their soup. Ralph also made him a good pack- 
sack of woven willow shoots. 

That night they turned in with minds set on an 
early start, for it looked like good weather, and 
Ralph’s feet were once more in proper working order. 
They planned to make good time from then on. 


88 


LOST RIVER 


Just as they were drowsing off, with the camp¬ 
fire throwing dancing shadows across their faces and 
Lotor snuggled down between them with tail curled 
over his nose, they were startled wide awake by the 
sound of a long-drawn scream, like the voice of a 
lost child crying in terror! 

Ralph’s hair prickled along his scalp, and his heart 
began hammering at his ribs till he could hardly 
breathe. Lotor, too, was broad awake and whim¬ 
pering, with fur raised all along his back, and tail if 
possible bushed wider than before. Tim lay without 
moving, his mouth open to help catch the first faint 
crackle of padded feet in the underbrush. 

The pair waited some time in silence, then, bone 
tired, drowsed off again. But in the morning, after 
Ralph had, as usual, upset the kettle of Labrador tea 
into Tim’s careful cook-fire and gone with the vessel 
to refill it, he remembered that savage scream. For 
there at the river’s rim were two things that made 
his eyes bulge with dismay, — an Indian arrowhead 
and a naked human foot-print. 


CHAPTER VIII 
Wild Mushrooms 

Ralph ordinarily walked rather noisily, but at 
sight of the flint arrowhead lying beside the foot¬ 
print in the mud, he tiptoed back to the fire with¬ 
out even stopping to fill the kettle. 

“Tim!” he chattered. “That scream we heard 
was an Indian. Look what I found,” and he ex¬ 
hibited the arrowhead. 

“Flub!” scorned Tim. “That was a panther we 
heard last night. And the woods are full of these 
things. Turn one up 'most every time I dig worms. 
Sure I do! This whole place ” (with a sweeping 
gesture) “used to be an old Indian battle-ground.” 

“G'wan! Why didn't we see it last night?” 

“Maybe Lotor dug it up.” 

“What about the foot-print?” and Ralph led 
the way back to the spot. “The Indians aren't all 
gone yet, are they?” 

“Let's take a look,” and Tim, with a sudden 
gleam of his eyes, and a twirk at the corners of his 
mouth, led the way. Arrived at the foot-print, he 
began dancing around his bewildered comrade in 
89 


90 


LOST RIVER 


the semblance of an Indian war dance, whooping at 
the top of his lungs. “You're some Scout!" he 
jeered. And it was only by a species of intuition 
that Ralph gathered that it was Tim, going down 
for a drink in the night, who had left the foot-print. 

“Indians are 'most as bad as ghosts," he observed. 

“Look there!" For he had discovered Lotor's 
tiny hand-like tracks as well. “There's where the 
arrowhead came from. Stop that racket, or I'll 
teach you to swim," and Ralph did his best to pitch 
the other into the stream, and would have done so 
had not the wiry country lad swung himself up into 
a tree. 

“Huh!" scorned Ralph. “You couldn't scare 
me with a ghost, anyway." 

“'Fraid of Indians! 'Fraid of Indians!" 

“All the same, it wasn't so long ago that they lived 
in these very woods, as ready to scalp a body as — " 

“Yes, they were!" unbelievingly. 

“I guess you never read much history. And if 
I thought you made that foot-print on purpose —" 

Tim changed the subject hastily. “Say, I've got 
an idea. Let's make bows and arrows!" 

“Great stuff!" agreed Ralph. “Then if that 
panther comes bothering 'round —" 

“Um — I was thinkin' of squirrels and things." 

“Well, why not?" 

Tim therefore started immediately after breakfast 
to reconstruct the arrows of his childhood. He chose 
hickory for Ralph and red cedar for himself. The 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 91 


hickory would stand a heavy hand and possible 
hard usage, while the more delicate cedar implement 
could not even be laid on the damp ground without 
injury. 

“ I'll warn you beforehand that the hickory won't 
shoot as far," he confessed. “But we'll exchange. 
And if we shoot ducks, you'll be the only member 
of the firm that can swim out and get them." 

“Bet I can shoot straighter than you can!" 

“I'll give you the chance to prove it!" 

Ralph grinned confidently. 

“While you are making the bows, I'm going to 
see what kind of fish net I can rig out of this," 
and he displayed an armful of the pliable inner bark 
of the willow shrubs he had been collecting. 

“ Good stunt," agreed Tim, cutting a length of cedar 
as high as his chin and chopping off a straight strip 
that would take in both heart- and sap-wood. This 
he painstakingly trimmed, first with the ax, then 
with his jackknife (which he sharpened on his four- 
ounce whetstone), till his bow piece was exactly as 
thick through each way as the middle joint of his 
first forefinger. He tapered it off a little at the ends. 
He finally shaved it smooth and flat on the side of 
the white sapwood, and round on the other. 

The string was a more difficult proposition, though 
he finally requisitioned his moose-hide shoe strings. 
He now tested the bow till it drew fairly evenly on 
both sides. Then he set about to search for the arrow- 
wood, whose straight shoots had only to be notched 


92 LOST RIVER 

at the feather end and the points hardened by toast¬ 
ing over the fire. 

The flint arrowhead Lotor had unearthed he 
bound into the split end of the strongest shaft. The 
quiver was an easy proposition of the indispensable 
birch bark, as was the bow case. 

Thus equipped, the larder began to be supplied 
with both squirrels and rabbits, and even an occa¬ 
sional partridge. And oh, joy of joys, before the day 
was over, there was a fat duck to the credit of Ralph's 
bow. His steady nerves were proving better than 
Tim's experience. 

The boys also played Indian with blunt, knobby 
arrows, potting each other from behind trees and 
fallen logs. 

The diet of meat and greens was getting rather mo¬ 
notonous when Tim suddenly noticed that the rains 
had brought out a jumbo crop of wild mushrooms. 
Since he, as well as Ralph, continued to get perfectly 
ravenous at least three times a day, it seemed a God¬ 
send; for Tim had picked mushrooms all his life, 
though without in the least knowing the names of 
most of them. 

“Too bad we haven't a silver spoon," said Ralph. 

“What for?" 

“Why, to test 'em with." 

“ Rats! There's nothing in that. I knew a woman 
once that tried that way of tellin', and there were 
seven in the family (counting herself), and five of 
them died, and the other two came nigh it." 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 93 


Ralph whistled. “ Perhaps we’d better steer clear 
of them ourselves.” 

“No, I won’t feed you any I haven’t eaten.” 

“Sure?” 

“I promise,” Tim crossed his heart. 

“All right. Let’s get busy.” 

“I'll get busy. Look out you don’t get too busy. 
Better let me give the once-over to all you pick.” 

At the end of an hour’s search, the two boys went 
back to camp. “Now dump ’em out and le’s see 
what you’ve got,” said Tim. “Phew! Might 
know you’d get Poison Cups. I forgot to warn you. 
Now you’ll have to throw away this whole batch, 
because these’ll poison even the good ones, all mixed 
in together that way.” 

“I’ll do no such thing,” stormed Ralph. “Those 
little white ones are all right. I tasted them.” 

“You — tasted them! Ralph Merritt, do you 
mean you ate some of this?” 

“Sure I did. Just a nibble.” 

“Well, that’s poison. Don’t you see the Death 
Cup?” and Tim pointed to the cuplike membrane 
that encircled the root end of the stem. “You can’t 
tell by smell or taste in this one, and — ” 

“Well — what will it do to me?” 

“If you ate enough of it, it will kill you — make 
you deathly sick first, and by this time to-morrow 
you’ll be a goner.” Tim was frankly scared. 

Ralph moistened dry lips uneasily. “How soon 
will I know if I ate enough of it?” 


94 


LOST RIVER 


“ That's it, you won’t know till morning, and then 
it will be too late.” 

“Well, I only took a tiny nibble.” 

“It’s lucky for you!” Though poor Ralph felt 
anything but lucky when his time came. He not 
only doubled up with the pain, but he was unfit for 
travel all that day. Tim improved the opportunity 
to teach him to know the good mushrooms, of which 
there were hundreds, all the best possible eating, in 
the woods about them, often half hidden under the 
leaves, sometimes growing boldly in clumps and 
clusters by the river bank. 

“ First let me get this Death Cup straight,” begged 
Ralph. “Is it always white?” 

“It might be any color. The one way you tell 
it is by the cup. That’s why it’s so dangerous. 
When you don’t positively know a mushroom, you 
have to dig each one up with a knife to make sure 
there’s no cup at the root. Then there’s this one,” 
and Tim sorted out a fly mushroom, with its brilliant 
orange-yellow top and the lightish patches like warts 
dotting it over. They had seen many of these bril¬ 
liant specimens, especially under the hemlocks, and 
Ralph had brought in a windfall of them. 

“ Y’see, there’s no death cup, only this at the root,” 
pointing out the shaggy appearance of the base of 
the stem. “It’s like as if the cup had got all worn 
to shreds. My grandmaw makes fly poison of this 
one, so I call it the fly mushroom.” 

“Then you want to beware bright colors?” 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 95 


“Not at all. You want to beware of this one. 
Notice the shaggy end of the stem, and the warts; 
and you see this skin-like ?” Tim indicated a ring of 
membrane that encircled the upper end of the stem. 
“That's another way of telling it.” 

“Well, now, we've been eating yellow mushrooms,” 
referring to the chantarelles of their first breakfast. 

“Aw, don't you know the difference yet?” 

“Sure, the chantarelles are paler and have yellow 
gills and these have white. And of course they 
didn't have the warts and the death cup.” 

“Is that the only thing? Get this! Think of 
the shape! These are umbrella-shape, like the mush¬ 
rooms you buy, and the chantarelle is calla lily-shape, 
remember, and the gills run clear down the stem.” 

“Yep! I've got that. Now what have you got 
that's good?” 

“All these. I'm cooking some.” 

“Not for me!” Ralph sheered away. 

“Aw, I tell you I've eaten 'em millions of times. 
There's pounds of good stuff here, as good as pota¬ 
toes, only better.” 

“What's this?” and Ralph picked up a firm um¬ 
brella-shaped red fungus with white gills. 

“That's a good one. You see the stem? Clean 
as a whistle. So it isn’t a Poison Cup. Now smell 
it. Taste it! Taste it, I tell you. See, I'm per¬ 
fectly game to eat it.” Tim swallowed a good bite. 
“Once your're sure you haven't got a Death Cup, 
smell and taste are the best guides you have, — at 


96 


LOST RIVER 


least they keep you from trying a lot that aren’t good 
to eat, though they aren’t deadly either.” 

“Now taste this one. I’ll warn you, just the 
teeniest nibble. (Oh, I promise I won’t pay you 
back for that ghost business till you’re feeling a little 
more hep.”) 

Ralph nibbled, then spat it out with a wry face. 
“Red pepper,” he pronounced, “and puckery as 
can be. Ugh! Let me get a drink.” 

“Well, now, you see these two red ones look almost 
exactly alike. That is the only way you can tell ’em 
apart, — by tasting. You have to taste every one 
till you get used to the exact color. The good ones 
are darker — some almost purple. — Here’s another 
good one,” and he held up a firm umbrella-shaped 
one with white gills and an olive green top, very 
faintly mottled with gray. One could hardly have 
seen it against the leaves. “ I found these back there 
under the hard-woods. Have some,” and Tim peeled 
the colored skin away with his thumb nail and started 
in on a handful. They were as sweet as chestnuts. 
“Look out, though, you’ve got a wormy one.” 

“What’s this?” demanded Ralph, holding up an¬ 
other orange-colored specimen, that gave a milky 
orange juice when broken open. 

“ Oh, I don’t know that one. I leave all orange- 
colored ones alone. Too much like the fly mushroom.” 

“Well, what’s this, then?” and Ralph showed one 
with a sticky, glistening top. 

“I don’t take any chances with those, either. It 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 97 


takes an expert to tell ’em. Some are good, they say, 
and some are not. Safety first!” 

"Well, what are these? They look just like the 
ones we buy.” 

"I know, but I never pick those, either. Too 
much like the Death Cup. Too many people have 
made mistakes. Plenty without ’em.” 

Ralph grimaced as he recalled the pangs he had 
just been through. 

"Now notice all these, so far, have had gills on 
the under side. Then I have one here with sponge¬ 
like on the under side.” And Tim laid out some 
enormous brown ones, anywhere from the size of his 
palm to that of a saucer. 

"One of these big ones’d make us a meal!” 

"That’s right, it would. Though you don’t want 
to eat the spongy part,” and Tim cut away the 
pores, which were yellow and rather unpleasantly 
glutinous. 

"Sure you can’t mistake it?” 

"Sure as shooting.” 

"All right, have one on me.” 

" Oh, we want to broil them. And if only we had 
a little butter or bacon fat — and a pan — ” 

"What about duck fat?” 

"Why not? We’ll try it, anyway. Why,” as he 
sampled the one he had in his hand. "It’s good 
raw. Only we might as well cook them. As I 
was saying, you’ll find lots of these after a rain, 
especially under birch trees. They’ll help us out 


LOST RIVER 


a lot. Take a good look now.” He held before 
Ralph the rusty specimen with its yellow, spongy, 
porous under side, and its yellow meat, and its tall 
tapering stem. “ I've found these so big they weighed 
pounds, and they're going to stand by us fine, here." 

A few days later Tim also found some oyster- 
flavored fungi growing in a great cluster on an old 
tree trunk, — a find from which they made a sort of 
oyster stew, — if a dish containing no milk may be 
called such. The almost stemless affairs grew side- 
wise, buff on top, with white gills, the rudimentary 
stems growing out of the sides of the caps. 

The mountain ridges on either side of the river 
grew curiously after the same pattern as the water¬ 
way, with arms of smaller hills instead of contribu¬ 
tory streams. The chief difference in the general 
outline was that the hills reminded one, not of a 
ribbon-like stream, but of the connected links of a 
chain. It occurred to the two boys that there might 
be some sign of civilization on the other side of the 
mountain chain; so when they came nearly opposite 
a pass that notched the purple outline on their left, 
they followed the brook that tumbled down through 
the valley till they came to the fairy waterfall at its 
head. From there they scrambled on up the rocky 
ravine till they reached the height of land. Not a 
sign of town or clearing, however, greeted their strain¬ 
ing eyes. Nothing but a sea of green, receding in 
wave after wave before them! 

Thus the shadows of approaching darkness over- 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 


99 


took them (muscle-sore and almost too weary to see 
where their stumbling feet were leading them), deep 
within the shadows of the spruce woods. 

Whiskey Jack had parted company with them not 
a great way from the river, but the little ’coon had 
slept all day, snuggled down in Ralph’s pocket. 

Too weary to make the usual preparations for the 
night, the boys drowsily decided to sleep in a cave-like 
cranny in the face of a cliff, to which they scrambled 
with some difficulty. Lotor was curiously uneasy, 
as if afraid to intrust himself either to the darkness 
without or to the cave mouth; but the boys were 
too sleepy at the time to think much about it, and 
the little ’coon finally snuggled down close to Ralph. 

Here at least was a dry floor and shelter from the 
rising wind, and almost before they had spread their 
blanket they were off to the land of nod. 

Just as the stars began to pale, signal of approach¬ 
ing dawn, Tim awoke to a realization of how cold 
and cramped he had become. What had he been 
dreaming? He struggled to remember. Something 
connected with the circus at Bangor, and just as he 
was peering into the panther’s cage, that animal 
had leaped straight through the bars at him. Then 
he rubbed his eyes and stared. There at his feet 
lay a bone, — a great white skull, as large as a deer’s, 
picked as clean as savage teeth could scrape it. At 
almost the same instant he became aware that the 
musky circus smell was not all a dream. They were 
in the cave of some wild beast! Creeping forward 


100 


LOST RIVER 


noiselessly, he studied the patch of soft ground that 
gave harbor to the roots of a stunted spruce a few 
feet below the cave mouth. The foot-print of a 
giant cat, beyond the question of a doubt! But 
not a lynx, — it was too clean-cut for that. It must 
be a panther! Lucky they had found the cave 
deserted. 

As the first faint gray streaked the aisles of ever¬ 
greens, he peered into the dusky silence that stretched 
before them. The birds were beginning to chirp. A 
red squirrel crept along a limb and leaped to the 
ground to dig up some secreted harvest for his break¬ 
fast. Lotor, calling a greeting from a neighboring 
tree-top, refused Tim’s invitation to come down. 

Suddenly, with the sixth sense that all woods dwell¬ 
ers seem to possess, the backwoods boy began to have 
a premonition of approaching danger. Perhaps it 
was the sudden cessation of the bird calls, or that 
harsh “ jay-jay-jay” of a tufted blue tattletale to the 
windward. Or perhaps it was the red squirrel, who 
now ran halfway up the nearest trunk, tail bushed 
wide as he flattened himself, chattering in shrill alarm 
as his beady eyes peered into the teeth of the breeze. 

Then through the shadowy tree trunks the boy 
spied a tawny form gliding sinuously to the foot of 
the cliff on which they had taken refuge. It had a 
limp orange-colored fawn in its jaws. 

“Ralph!” whispered Tim, shaking the sleeper 
broad awake. “ I say, Ralph! We’re in a panther’s 
cave!” 


CHAPTER IX 
Panther and Wolverine 

Ralph blinked in sudden terror, as Tim con¬ 
tinued shaking him and whispering. Then like a 
stroke of lightning he sensed the situation. His 
scalp prickled. They had slept in a panther’s 
cave! And the panther was coming back! 

Tim peered again, and Ralph with him. The 
tawny form at the foot of the cliff was just trying 
for a better grip on the fawn, before essaying the 
scrambling leap to the cave mouth. 

No use trying to get out of there now. The 
puma might stop to feed at the foot of the cliff, 
but after that he’d want to go to sleep. 

“Come here!” beckoned Ralph, creeping to a 
little upper crevice at the rear of the long cave, 
which the coming dawn now disclosed to his frenzied 
glance. 

He was just fitting the flint-headed arrow to his 
bow when Tim signaled: “No, no!” For he 
knew they could never kill a panther with that. 
They’d only wound him, and then —! The mad¬ 
dened beast would destroy them in short order. 

101 


102 


LOST RIVER 


“He won't hurt us!" whispered the backwoods 
boy. Not that he felt so very confident himself, 
but he realized that their one chance lay in show¬ 
ing no fear. He had watched Jo Grigg training 
bears for the circus. And he knew that the puma 
would not attack them unless he thought them 
dangerous. 

It was, happily, a male, (there being no kittens 
in the den), or it might have been a different story! 

Ralph was remembering how it is with dogs. 
They know if one is afraid. 

The two boys could hear the scrambling of the 
panther's claws as he finally made a successful 
leap up the side of the cliff with his burden. The 
boys held as still as mice. “He won't hurt us if 
we don't hurt him," they were trying to convince 
themselves. They were struggling hard for mind 
control, — struggling to send the owner of the cave 
a message of their friendly intentions. “Go ahead, 
kitty, eat a good breakfast," Ralph was saying 
inwardly, — almost smiling at the words, —“and 
then you can curl up and have a good snooze, and 
when you wake up, you'll have the cave all to 
yourself! You can bet on that!" 

How long either boy would have been able to keep 
up the bluff, — strong nerved as they had become, 
these boy Crusoes, — will never be known. For 
as the long-bodied hunter, tail twitching at its 
very tip, narrowed his eyes suspiciously at the two 
forms huddled silent and mysterious at the far end 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 103 


of the cave, he let the limp body of the fawn slip 
over the edge of the cliff. 

He made a snatch at his disappearing breakfast, 
then turned to peer at the spot where he sensed 
the nearness of some alien presence, — though 
probably never before in all his life had he come 
so near one of these white-faced little bipeds that 
showed neither teeth nor claws. The smell was 
that which clung to the steel traps that one some¬ 
times found lying hidden on one's trail in the winter, 
— a smell by all means to be avoided. Then what 
was this woolly-smelling thing spread so lifeless over 
the dry leaves of his bed? No live sheep, cer¬ 
tainly, — and tainted with the breath of the bipeds. 
Neither blanket nor boys seemed dangerous, and 
yet — the unknown is always menacing. 

On the other hand, there was his kill lying at 
the foot of the cliff, and his stomach hurt with its 
twenty-four hour emptiness. He had had an all- 
night hunt, before he had finally discovered 
the fawn, probably a little separated from the 
punishing hooves and antlers of the yearling bucks 
that accompany the doe. (Tim imagined the 
mental processes that kept the great beast hesi¬ 
tant.) 

Then, (Tim afterwards felt sure), he had crossed 
the trail of his enemy the wolverine. Assuredly 
he could not leave his breakfast down there un¬ 
protected from the thieving villain, who had prob¬ 
ably followed him out of sheer malevolent envy. 


104 


LOST RIVER 


And yet — and yet — ought he to turn his back 
on these queer trespassers in his cave? 

Thus the panther stood at the top of the ledge, 
turning his head first to peer at the silent boys, 
then down at the spot where the fawn had fallen. 

A sudden veer of the wind set his nose to wrinkling 
uneasily. Then he whirled about with an angry 
snarl, and leaped to the ground to stand guard over 
his breakfast. That wolverine was coming to steal 
his kill! The two boys crept forward on hands 
and knees to peer at what was happening. Then 
as the sounds of battle rose, they watched, for a 
moment, spellbound, their nerves tingling sav¬ 
agely ! 

The panther, — dragging his eight feet of smooth 
orange-buff, serpent-like, along the ground between 
his catch and the marauder, crouched for the spring, 
— tail twitching in his rage like the snap of a whip. 
The wolverine, awkward, shaggy, dusty brown, 
and snarling hideously, approached with hind¬ 
quarters curiously humped. 

He seemed to the boys a small antagonist for 
their host of the night's lodging, and they trembled 
as they thought of the probable outcome. For 
the newcomer was scarce larger than a dog, with 
his broad, hairy tail, though heavier of body and 
shorter of leg. But so hateful was the glare in his 
savage eyes, and so terrible his bared yellow fangs, 
as he seemed to snarl voicelessly, that they were 
not surprised at what transpired. 



“He gave a sudden cat-like hiss and launched himself 

fully fifteen feet.*' 
















TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 105 


(They realized their chance to make a get-away, 
but still they watched, fascinated.) 

The wolverine's intention had undoubtedly been 
to sneak the fawn away before the panther could 
prevent it. Confronted in the very act, he was 
too full of baffled rage to give ignominious retreat ; 
though had his evil wrath not blinded him to reason, 
he would have done so even at that late hour. For 
the panther is the one creature in all the North 
Woods that is really feared by the “ Injun devil,” 
as the wolverine has been so aptly named. 

On the other hand, the panther was not at all 
certain of coming out victor with the hideous beast, 
with his raking claws and his iron tenacity. In 
other words, the pair were pretty evenly matched. 

The panther, growling his menace, as he crept 
toward the would-be thief with muscles rippling 
ready underneath his tawny skin, gave a sudden 
cat-like hiss and launched himself fully fifteen 
feet through the air, landing at clutches with the 
wolverine. 

The Injun devil, eyes glowing green with hate, 
hair risen straight on his rump, became suddenly 
a whirlwind of twenty steel claws and teeth bared 
for a grip on his antagonist's throat. 

The panther was prepared for this, and he 
likewise was armed with steel and ivory. With 
his forelegs he grasped the smaller animal about 
the neck, trying for a bite through the jugular 
vein, his hind legs striving with those of his foe 


106 


LOST RIVER 


for a chance to rip at the vitals of the other. For 
a few minutes the boys' hearts thumped at the fear¬ 
ful sight, hypnotized into forgetfulness of their 
own situation, as the two maddened brutes rolled 
and tore and growled their threats, like barnyard 
cats, — monstrously enlarged and proportionately 
more vicious. 

With a curious worm-like twist, the wolverine 
had swept himself free and leaped for the nearest tree, 
whence his back arched and his little eyes glowered 
evilly from beneath his hairy brows, — while through 
all the woods around, there was breathless quiet. 

A yellow streak shot through the air, and the 
panther had landed squarely upon him, the two 
whirling to the ground together. But now it be¬ 
came apparent that the wolverine was weakening, — 
a jagged wound began reddening his side, — and 
again he jerked away. This time, for all his wound, 
he made off uphill so fast that the less speedy owner 
of the disputed fawn lost ground at every step. 
Still, that was no reason for giving up the chase. 
At clutches, the panther could still administer pun¬ 
ishment, — perhaps exterminate his foe entirely. 

At this point the boys once more realized where 
they were, and with one accord caught up their 
duffel and slid down the cliff and away in a speedier 
fashion than they would have believed possible 
the night before. 

“ Wish we could find a trail," said Tim. “ Seems as 
if there ought to be an old wood road or something." 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 107 


“Or a surveyor's line." 

“ Don't know if it's been surveyed up this far." 

“ Let's keep our eyes peeled for blazes." 

“All right." And both boys began scanning the 
trunks just above the level of their eyes for signs 
of an ax clip. 

They had followed the gorge of the little stream 
up to the height of land. During the early after¬ 
noon they came to a fairly open stretch of woods, 
and it occurred to them that it might be faster 
traveling along the top of the ridge. They fig¬ 
ured that if they kept to the rise they were bound 
to come out on the river, especially if they kept 
heading east, — as the river ran north and south. 

After their experience of the day before, they 
thought with longing of the raft they had aban¬ 
doned so light-heartedly. Ah, there lay the river 
at last! Tim ran forward with a whoop. Ralph's 
muscles were too lame for running. 

The younger boy came to an abrupt standstill. 
For there on the tiny beach were signs of a recent 
camp-fire! Tingling with excitement, he stared 
in amazement. There lay their own foot-prints! 
He fitted first his shoe, then Ralph's, into the muddy 
depressions. Yes, theirs they were, beyond the 
shadow of a doubt. 

But this was not where they had left the raft. 
They had taken the wrong side of the triangle, 
in branching off on that ridge. And the under¬ 
growth was so thick, with fallen limbs, and vines 


108 


LOST RIVER 


and bog holes, that it would take ages to follow the 
river afoot through the tangle. 

Here where a deer trail led down to the brink it 
was easier going, but that would lead back into 
the hills. It was hard traveling. 

At this point Ralph conceived the idea of leav¬ 
ing a note stuck to a tree every here and there along 
the bank, in case any one should come that way 
searching for them. He got the idea from some¬ 
thing he had read of the ancient Hindus. He 
would write on a strip of beech cut thin. Search¬ 
ing about, therefore, until he found one of the stout 
silvery barked trees with its low-growing branches, 
and its burrs, he lopped off a branch and pains¬ 
takingly cut it into flat slabs on which he could carve 
the message. 

“ Ralph Merritt and Tim Crawford passed here,” 
he printed, then blackened the letters with char¬ 
coal, trusting that the rains would not wash it all 
away. One of these he stuck in an overhanging 
limb where it could easily be seen by any one pass¬ 
ing up or down the river. 

This seemingly trivial experiment was to be put 
to a strange use later on. 

They camped on a flat-topped bowlder that 
jutted out into the river, catching the breeze and 
thus avoiding mosquitoes. They rose to a dawn 
clear and stimulating, the air pungent with the 
mingled fragrances of pine and balsam. At the 
mouth of a reedy brook that crept sluggishly into 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 109 


the main water-course, they found the conical 
mud teepees of a little colony of musk-rats; but 
there was not a sign of life about, the rats doubt¬ 
less having gone to sleep for the day. The cones 
looked for all the world like little haystacks, thrown 
together crudely of mud, sticks, and rushes. There 
seemed to be no entryway, till the boys — by 
hammering on one of the dwellings — drove its 
owners forth from an under-water exit. The rats 
appeared to be about a foot and a half from tip to 
tip. The boys were convulsed with mirth at the 
way they used their stout caudal appendages, — as if 
they had been oars. 

Ralph shot an arrow with such effect that he 
speared one of the musky fellows through its thick¬ 
set little head. 

“What d' you want him for?” demanded Tim, 
as the stout boy floundered into the muddy water 
after his disappearing catch. “We don't have to 
eat those things, do we?” 

“ I want his fur.” 

“Huh! Fur's no good this time o' year.” 

“Yes, it is, for what I want.” And Ralph 
struggled out on to the bank with his unwilling 
prize held tightly by the back of the head, and at 
arm's lengthy where neither teeth nor claws could 
be brought into play. “I want to make a pair 
of insoles to pad my shoes.” Which was not at 
all a bad idea. 

A sharp knock with the ax-head put the pris- 


110 


LOST RIVER 


oner out of his misery, and a few clips of the blade 
severed tail, head, and feet. Peeling the fur off 
like the skin of a sausage, with the aid of the jack¬ 
knife to coax it free and clean it of the bits of adher¬ 
ing fat, it was then stretched, wrong side out, as it 
was, over a slab of wood, to dry in the shade. 

After that the pelt was cut in two pieces, one for 
each foot, and both boys set to work pulling, rub¬ 
bing, working it soft, till with the gray-brown fur 
turned uppermost, Ralph fitted a piece into each 
shoe and snuggled his tired feet into this cushion¬ 
ing. 

Walking was easier now. Just around the next 
bend, they came to the raft, drawn up on the bank 
as they had left it. 

How much farther would they have to go, they 
wondered? The river was growing wider, and the 
current stronger. Tim wished more than ever that 
he could swim. 

Ralph poled steadily, tirelessly, the little ’coon 
on his shoulder, while Tim promised to do all the 
camp-making, — a division of labor satisfactory 
to both; for Ralph’s arms were stronger, while 
Tim was more skilled at cooking and fire-making 
and the finding of the proper shelter. 

One afternoon they passed such a tempting- 
looking berry patch that they decided to stop for 
a couple of hours and eat their fill. They had been 
having a glorious time, when Tim heard a snapping 
of the brush behind him. His first impulse was to 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 111 

laugh, as he saw the stout boy sprawled out with one 
leg under him, his hatful of berries scattered to the 
four winds. Then he saw that Ralph was pale 
about the mouth. 

“Land! Are you hurt?” he cried, springing 
to help him up. 

“Whoa there —my ankle!” and beads of cold 
perspiration stood out on the other's forehead as 
he tried to rise to his feet. “Stepped into a hole!” 
he winced. 

“Le's see your ankle,” demanded Tim, whose 
skilled fingers were already pulling off the boot. 
The flesh was swelling rapidly. Tim felt it over 
painstakingly. “'Taint a real sprain, — just a 
wrench,” he decided at last. “Still, you never can 
tell. You ought not to walk on it for a coupl' 
days anyway,” and he tore his bandanna to strips 
to bind it about. “Now you'd better keep your 
foot in the coldest pool we can find till the swell¬ 
ing goes down.” 

“Wish I had my first-aid kit with me.” 

“Well, so do I.” 

“I'll have to use you for a crutch, old man.” 

“Wait!”—Tim ran for his ax and began 
chopping. In a very few minutes he had a fine 
crutch cut from a sapling, with the main stem 
cut out just where the first two branches forked. 

Tim pondered soberly. “We're not making very 
fast time. Bet I could pole that raft down my¬ 
self.” 


112 


LOST RIVER 


“What, and run the chance of another spill? 
When you can't swim? Fm out of commission, 
all right.” 

“Aw, we won't spill. We'll never get anywhere 
if we don't keep going. All you have to do is sit 
tight.” And Ralph was induced finally to limp 
to the water's edge and scramble aboard. He 
sat with his feet braced in notches in the sides of 
the log, while Tim stood balancing with his pole. 
Just behind, the precious duffel was securely bound 
in place for a journey. Lotor clung to Ralph. 

“We're off!” cheered the cripple, “but deliver 
me, if we bump into anything again! Good¬ 
night!” as they sailed around the bend. “Don't 
try that!” as he saw the white water stretched 
before them. But the warning came too late. 
The little craft was already whirling madly through 
the rapids. 


CHAPTER X 
Midsummer Madness 

They had been winding through a tunnel of trees, 
and so suddenly had the little raft whirled around 
the bend that they had had no warning of the white 
water just ahead. Forewarned, Tim would never 
have risked it, (with Ralph's lame ankle putting 
him out of the running). His grasp on the pole 
tightened to the full strength of his thin arms, and 
his breath nearly stopped as he recalled that he 
could not swim. 

There was no chance to turn back: the rush of 
waters carried them bump, scrape, bump! through 
the rocky channel, here churning them up and 
down, and there sending them with a giddy rush 
down the glassy slope of a tiny waterfall. Now 
the left-hand log was caught between two points 
of rock: the raft veered 'round and jammed! 
Hurray! If it only held! For the worst rapids 
lay just ahead. But the rush of water was so 
strong, they must vacate quickly if at all. The 
logs might at any moment be torn from beneath 
them. 


113 


114 


LOST RIVER 


“Can you make it, pard?" yelled Tim. For 
answer Ralph crept out on an up-thrust bowlder. 
“Pass me the stuff," he signaled above the roar 
of the water. And as the little 'coon made a flying 
leap for shore, via a big bowlder, Tim reached across 
and gave Ralph the loaded pack-strap and the 
blanket-roll, then the bows and arrows. The ax 
he took a chance on throwing to shore, and the pole 
he used to help himself as he balanced on a half- 
submerged rock midway of the boiling stream. 
Then Ralph passed him the duffel and he leaped 
back and forth to a point from which he could land 
it on dry ground. Next he passed Ralph the pole. 
The stout boy groaned as he shifted his weight to 
his lame ankle, but it had to be done. Once on the 
strip of gravelly beach, he was so white and faint 
that Tim brewed him a stimulating drink of steam¬ 
ing Labrador tea. After an hour's rest the city 
boy pronounced himself once more above-board, 
and ready to enjoy life. 

It seemed best now to make a comfortable camp 
and “lay by" for a few days till the wrenched ankle 
had a chance to mend. Tim discovered that by 
tying his knife to the end of a pole, he could spear 
fish, — at least, he might with practice. That was 
easier than damming up the brooks and using a net, 
besides being more fun. 

Ralph, meantime, was enjoying the enforced 
idleness, despite his natural uneasiness as to the out¬ 
come of their wanderings. The strange river might, 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 115 


or might not, lead to human habitation, but at 
least they were all right for the present. 

He used to sit swaying rhythmically in the sun¬ 
shine, cross-legged like a dervish, whistling the 
many tunes with which he had enlivened the voyage. 
He had a good voice, and needed no other amuse¬ 
ment. 

The little 'coon enjoyed it too. So did some other 
of the folk in fur and feathers, — and scales. For 
there was a tiny green snake that would come nearer, 
inch by inch, as Ralph whistled softly there in the 
quiet sunshine. Lifting his green head and staring 
with his beady eyes, he would nod his head to the 
rhythm, — though ready to back away with tongue 
out-thrust at any startling movement on the part 
of the musician. 

Now came a stirring in the underbrush, and a 
small brown stump appeared where no stump had 
been before. Ralph, watching motionless, and 
whistling more and more softly, saw the stump 
wriggle its black nose and blink its beady little eyes. 
Then he observed that the stump had a pair of 
black paws clasped over its furry chest, and the 
round little ears of a woodchuck. The 'chuck 
stared fascinated for as much as fifteen minutes 
before dropping out of sight as suddenly as he had 
appeared. Later in the afternoon Ralph noticed 
the stump again, — evidently a music lover, as are 
most wild things. 

The red squirrels were bolder, — creeping head 


116 


LOST RIVER 


downward from the surrounding trees to stare and 
listen. And there was a chipmunk who came closer 
still, his orange striped sides aquiver with excite¬ 
ment. 

A pair of little black-capped chickadees grew 
friendly before the concert was over, breaking in 
every now and again, as if trying it for themselves, 
with a “’tsic-a-dee-dee-dee,” as they hung head 
downward from the end of a branch. And the 
crows — whether from a love of music, or just out 
of their usual curiosity, perched in the tops of the 
pines, or circled about overhead in great excite¬ 
ment. 

Ralph also learned to imitate some of the bird 
calls. He could carry on a conversation with the 
wood thrush and the catbird, both of which had 
nests near by. 

It was July, but away up here in the North coun¬ 
try the sun felt good when it shone through the 
creamy billows of the cloud-flecked sky. An oc¬ 
casional pheasant creaked out his sudden flight 
from covert, his long tail making him look much 
like a toy aeroplane; and a flock of blackbirds 
whirled past, curveting about like drilling troops, 
till they found a tree-top to their liking. The 
woods stretched cool and shadowy, and the river 
tumbled green and white over the rocks. Ralph 
swayed and whistled, more and more softly as he 
grew more drowsy. A delightful languor crept 
over him. Then he knew no more. He had fallen 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 117 


fast asleep. Tim, returning with a string of fish, 
tiptoed away with a grin. 

The shadows lengthened. Suddenly — a live 
thing fell with a thud on the sleeper's chest. Ralph 
peeked cautiously from half-closed lids. It was a 
squirrel, — and such a pretty, big-eyed creature 
he thought he had never seen before. 

She was sitting up now and washing her face 
daintily with her paws. But what kind of squirrel 
could she be ? Surely not the ordinary gray squirrel! 
She seemed curiously without fear, even when he 
opened his eyes wide. She had a curious light 
patch on either side, as well as dark rims around her 
eyes that made them seem even larger and rounder 
than they really were. And so soft and friendly did 
she appear, and so innocent, that the boy's heart 
went out to her, and he determined to capture 
her. 

But as if the squirrel had read his thought,— 
more likely she had detected the first stealthy move¬ 
ment of his arm, — she insured her freedom by a 
great leap that carried her to the base of the nearest 
tree. To Ralph's surprise the lighter patches on 
her sides spread out as she jumped, and she dis¬ 
played a fold of skin that stretched from foreleg to 
hind leg like a sail. It was a flying-squirrel! 

The delighted boy lay still, hoping she would come 
back again. Perhaps she detected some odor of 
food on his coat front. Or perhaps she was just 
curious, — fearless because she had had no ex- 


118 


LOST RIVER 


perience with human kind. At any rate, his patience 
was rewarded, for presently she leaped back again, — 
and now indeed she seemed to sail through the air, 
as her furry sides spread to ease her downward 
flight. 

Ralph now reached very, very slowly and cau¬ 
tiously for a flake of fish that had been left from 
luncheon and laid it on his chest. And she waited 
till he was quite still, then reached daintily out 
for it and nibbled it appreciatively. 

By the time Tim came back from his fish-spear¬ 
ing expedition, Ralph had very nearly won the fairy¬ 
like little creature; and before the next day was 
done, the young flying-squirrel was cuddling af¬ 
fectionately into his pocket. Tim thought she 
must have been left orphaned, since she was so tame. 
At any rate, she ate from Ralph's hand and seemed 
perfectly contented when he stroked her velvety sides. 

Lotor, meantime, was proving that 'coons are 
ventriloquists. If he called from a tree to the 
right, he could make it appear as if his funny little 
voice was behind them; and a comical time they 
had looking for him when they got ready to move 
on. The little rascal developed a habit of running 
away if they showed the least eagerness to catch 
him, crossing and re-crossing the river with his 
great leaps in a way even Tim was powerless to 
follow. Then, just as they had given him up, he 
would suddenly drop to their shoulders and begin 
begging for a tidbit. 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 119 


Once, though, his piteous, piercing calls seemed to 
come from the top of a pine tree, and following 
with their eyes, they found him in a crow's nest, 
with the parent crows pecking and scolding and 
flapping about him in a terrible state. That time 
he came near getting full punishment for his nest 
robbing. But he escaped with his eyes, and there¬ 
after for several days sulked mournfully about, 
licking his wounds and massaging them with his 
healing tongue. But was he cured of his fondness 
for eggs and fledglings? He was not! He was 
only cured of his fondness for crows' nests. 

Their first night by the rapids Tim had made a 
jacklight, and hied himself down-stream to wind¬ 
ward of the place he had seen hoof-prints. Hidden 
behind the huge wall of bark, he waited, flint-stone 
in hand, till he should hear deer approaching on the 
opposite shore, when he would light his torch and 
flash the light across at the visitors. 

When at last he heard the faint crackle of under¬ 
brush that warned him something was there, and 
the flash of his jack-light had cut across through the 
surrounding blackness, he was rewarded by the 
sight of a full-antlered deer gazing at the light with 
shining eyes and ears strained forward to pene¬ 
trate the mystery. Then without waiting to drink, 
he uttered a “Hew!" and went scudding back into 
the inclosing forest, his white flag raised against 
his shadowy outline. 

That night the boys were just drowsing off when 


120 


LOST RIVER 


a “Thump! Thump! Thump!” sounded from 
across their night-fire. They listened, and it came 
again, this time from somewhere in the woods 
behind them. Then, sleepily, they eyed the circle 
of the firelight. It was a rabbit peering with long 
ears pointed at the sleepers. The boys lay quiet, 
watching from beneath half-closed lids, lest the 
shine of their open eyes should frighten their visitors 
away. “Thump! Thump! Thump \” came from 
another quarter of the circle. And presently, 
gaining courage from the silence, half a dozen brown 
furry forms came skipping and leaping and prying 
about this strange light space in the forest fastness. 
There were two big bunnies, and five little fellows, 
the boys counted. Every now and again, at a sig¬ 
nal, they would all “ freeze” into statues, while 
they listened, their beady eyes the only sign of life 
about them. 

Then first one, and then another, began gnawing 
on the ax handle whose salty taste of perspiration 
must have appealed to them. That would never 
do, thought Tim, — though Ralph would have 
been willing to leave them to their new form of 
enjoyment, had the backwoods boy not sprung 
to rescue the precious implement. 

A stamp and the seven furry forms had leaped 
away into the darkness, and both boys fell asleep 
watching for their return. 

In the morning Ralph searched far and wide for 
one of his shoes, but to no avail. It had disap- 



“First one then another began gnawing on 
the axe handle.” 















TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 121 

peared as completely as if it had never been. “As 
if I didn't have troubles enough with my pins," 
he grumbled, to Tim's amusement. 

The backwoods boy said nothing. He only circled 
around and around the camp, apparently interested 
in nothing but the foot-prints of their late visitors. 
Then he gave a whoop. Away off under a fallen 
log he found the missing shoe. 

“How did it get there ?" marveled Ralph. 

“Rabbit dragged it." 

And sure enough, the lining had been chewed to 
ribbons. 

That day Ralph had so far recovered the use of 
his ankle that he whistled and sang, and juggled 
with the bows and arrows and birch-bark vessels, 
and taught the flying-squirrel to come when he 
called it, and finally even declared himself game for 
hiking past the rapids and making another three- 
log raft. So they moved on, Ralph tucking the 
squirrel into his pocket, while Lotor followed along 
the roof of the forest. 

They had stopped to rest when they heard the 
little 'coon's piteous cry of terror, seemingly right 
overhead. Knowing his powers as a ventriloquist, 
they looked for him on all sides. For the moment 
they could not see his fat gray form anywhere among 
the branches. But they did spy a weasel racing 
up a tree trunk and along a branch. The slim 
yellow killer, his evil eyes fastened on the tree ad¬ 
joining, turned to stretch his flat head toward them 


I 


122 


LOST RIVER 


for a fleeting glimpse, then leaped through the air 
at a branch ten feet away, and alighted like a squirrel. 

Then they saw Lotor scrambling desperately 
around the tree trunk and out to the tip of a branch 
on the side opposite his pursuer. 

The little ’coon was swift, but the weasel was 
like lightning. When Lotor — trapped on the end 
of his limb — made a monstrous leap to the ground, 
the weasel leaped after him, — and the ’coon gave 
another sky-piercing cry of despair. 

Then the one thing happened to that weasel that 
ever could have stopped him. The flint-headed 
arrow, sped from Ralph’s bow, pierced his throat. 

Not that this prevented him from pursuing his 
intended victim up the nearest tree trunk. In 
his rage his little eyes were fiery. But red drops 
were staining the white of his throat, and after 
two more leaps from tree to tree, he was so far 
weakened that he suddenly abandoned the chase 
and made off up-stream. 

Later that afternoon, as the boys returned for 
their second load of duffel, they found him lying 
stiff and still, with the arrow still in his neck. 

“That was a narrow squeak for you, Lotor, old 
boy,” Ralph told the little ’coon, skinning off the 
weasel’s black-tipped tail for the “ermine.” 

There followed several days of good raft work. 

Suddenly, one hot, dry morning, when the sun 
shone red through a hazy sky, Tim began peering 
intently at the little cloud wreaths along the southern 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 123 


horizon, and Ralph wondered at the tense look on 
his face. To his unpracticed eye there was nothing 
unusual about the landscape, unless it was the red¬ 
ness of the sun. 

But Tim pointed to where, away off on the edge 
of things, appeared a single cloudlike spiral that 
mounted slowly into the sky. Ralph blinked, then 
shaded his eyes and peered again. Clouds didn't 
rise that way. 

“What is it?” he demanded. 

“A fire startin', I guess.” Tim always dropped 
his g when excited. 

Even then the full seriousness of the situation 
did not strike them. 

But by noon the wind had veered till it drove 
straight toward them, and the woods were gray 
and pungent with the smoke it brought, while the 
heat had grown oppressive. 

Then, off through the mingling greens of the 
woods to the left, rose a sight that widened their 
eyes with fear. 

The fire was racing toward them! And the dry 
woods were blazing up like tinder. 


CHAPTER XI 
Fighting Fire 

Ralph watched anxiously, while Tim climbed a 
tree and studied the smoke clouds. 

“It's headed this way, all right!” he shouted, 
as he dropped to the ground again. 

“What d' y' think we'd better do?” 

“It won't cross the river. It'll just run along 
the bank, — unless the wind changes we're safe 
enough.” 

Ralph sniffed the pungent air. “But it's going 
to burn all these woods! Shucks! Now there's 
no use planning to come back here with Dad!” 

Tim mused soberly. “The time that stretch 
burned along Wild River, the stumps were smoking 
three months afterward, Pap says. It was seventeen 
years ago. And now look at it!” 

“Government land, too, isn't it, here?” 

“Yes, most likely.” 

“A lot of animals will get burned alive.” At 
that moment a wild-eyed deer and her two slim 
spotted fawns went leaping past them to the 
river. “My, if there is any one living 'round here, 

124 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 125 

they’ll be in for it. Tim!” as a sudden idea took 
form. 

“Yep?” 

“Why should we let it?” 

“Let what?” 

“Let it burn all these woods! What ought a 
Scout to do?” 

Tim held up three fingers: “‘My duty to my 
country.’ Why! We’ve got to stop this fire!” 
And his eyes snapped. 

“But — can we?” 

“Sure! I’ve helped fight fires, lots of times,” 
cried the backwoods boy, stripping off his coat. 
“This only needs checking along there,” pointing 
to the north. “It’s heading straight this way,” 
testing the breeze with a moistened forefinger, his 
back to the sun. 

“Is it a crown fire or a — you know, a ground 
fire? I’ve heard Dad say —” 

“I don’t know,” and Tim looked dubious. “But 
I wish we had two axes. I’m goin’ to take another 
squint,” and he once more scrambled up his tall 
pine. “It’s more than just running through the 
leaves,” he called down. “And yet it doesn’t 
seem to be up in the tops of the trees, either, exactly. 
More like it’s just eating off the brush and stuff. 
But it’s coming mighty fast. It’s just scootin’ 
along!” 

“Let’s make a fire trench,” shouted Ralph. 

For answer, Tim began clearing off a strip of 


126 


LOST RIVER 


ground two feet wide with the ax. “ Maybe we 
can hold it between here and the ridge,” he panted. 
“ Maybe it’s rocky on top an' that’ll stop it. Lucky 
it’s narrow here, or there wouldn’t be much use ’n 
our trying.” 

Ralph looked on wide-eyed. This was adventur¬ 
ing in earnest. To the east the air was all dizzy 
heat waves above the shooting flames. The smoke 
haze had darkened the sky and the sun shone through 
like a great ball of fire. 

“ Funny we should start away back here,” he 
mused. “Why don’t we go to meet the fire and save 
all these woods in between?” 

“ It’s cornin’ too fast,” panted Tim. “’Twouldn’t 
be any use. Get busy! Aren’t ye clearin’ this 
rubbish off?” 

Ralph started to work, dragging away the brush 
as Tim chopped it off at the roots, and carting it to 
a safe distance behind the trench. 

“Whew!” he exclaimed, throwing off his pack. 
“I see we’re going to have to race for it,” and for 
once the stout boy was not averse to perpetual 
motion. His shirt was dripping by the time he had 
cleared off the first ten feet, and Tim was nearly 
winded. Ralph now took the ax and began whack¬ 
ing at the underbrush, while Tim made a sort of 
rake by trimming off a branch just beyond its fork, 
and with this crude instrument scraped the dead 
leaves from the narrow line of earth. The wind 
still drove toward the river, so that the boys were off 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 127 


to one side of the path of the smoke. But the air 
was stifling, and their eyes smarted till they could 
hardly see. 

When they had gone fifty paces, Ralph ran back 
and dipped his blanket into the stream, ready to 
beat out any runaway flame that might attempt to 
cross their boundary line. And it became the part 
of the one that was not chopping to see that coats 
and blankets accompanied their line of progress. 

Foot by foot, they attacked the forest floor, 
hands blistering and mouths dry with thirst. The 
fire was nearer now, and the air was filled with the 
terrified cries of birds in flight. A fox made a red- 
brown streak past them in his retreat. On every 
side were darting, undulating forms in gray and 
brown, or black and white, that told Tim out of 
the tail of his eye of the rout of the smaller forest 
folk. 

Once there was a snorting crash in the brush 
behind him, as of some larger animal, probably a 
bear, — but Tim hadn't time even to turn his head 
to see. Ralph gave a yell when a writhing coppery¬ 
headed thing slid by him. 

The flames now roared like distant surf, except 
that the sound did not cease between waves. 
The boys recalled this afterwards. At the time 
they had no thought but for hacking and clearing 
that saving line of fire-break. 

The sparks began flying over their heads and 
falling on the dry pine needles a rod to the left. 


128 


LOST RIVER 


Ralph sprang at them with his coat and beat the 
little outlaw flames into charred insensibility. 

If the wind should veer ever so little to the north¬ 
ward — they would be in the very path of the fire, 
too far from either the river or the rock ridge to 
reach safety. 

“We’ll never make it, this way,” gasped Tim 
through parched lips. “ Better take a chance on 
starting a back-fire.” 

“ Guess we'd better,” agreed Ralph, seizing a 
blazing branch. ‘Til light it and you come along 
behind me and beat it out. Or no, you're all in, 
aren't you, kid?” 

“No, I'm not!” 

“My arms are stronger, though. You do the 
lighting.” And Ralph took the younger boy's 
coat. 

But from time to time he was willing enough to 
surrender it to his more wiry comrade, while he 
went ahead with a birch-bark torch. 

Due east he kept his nose pointed now, with the 
lowering sun square at his back, fixing at every 
upward glance on some outstanding bowlder or 
other landmark a little ahead as his next objective 
point. 

The hardwood forest was dwindling to a fringe 
interspersed with evergreens. Both boys had to 
work as fast as they could to keep the little line of 
flame in check, Ralph scraping the needles together 
with the forked stick, while Tim thwack-thwack- 



“Tim thwacked at the little tongues of flame as they 

spread beyond the line.” 

















































TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 129 


thwacked at the little tongues of flame as they 
spread beyond the line. 

One flame he allowed to stray, and he almost 
failed to catch the runaway. It left his heart 
thumping. 

They could never reach the river now, even if 
they ran for it. Their one hope lay in the rocky 
ridge. But could they make even that in time? 

Pace by pace, and rod by rod, they marked off 
the boundary beyond which the ground fire should 
not creep, — dragging off every fallen branch and 
chopping through logs they could not move save in 
shorter lengths. And to their other sufferings was 
now added the misery of scorched shoes. They tied 
slabs of bark under their feet, but it was too clumsy. 

Their lungs were torn for breath, and their nostrils 
stung with the acrid smoke. A pitch pine shot into 
flame behind them, crackling mightily. “If it 
should start up in the branches!” was the thought 
in each boy's mind. That would be too bad to be 
true! For with a good blaze going through those 
pine trees, there would be no stopping it at all, if 
indeed the boys were not cut off from escape them¬ 
selves. 

As the torch-like trunk sent a blue-flaming branch 
to the ground, Ralph watched like a tiger with coat 
raised and ready to fall upon it. But it dropped 
just on the line of back-fire and so did no harm. 

Black clouds were rolling up on the wind, and 
every now and again they shifted till it took the 


130 


LOST RIVER 


boys full in the face, and for a few moments they 
had to throw themselves prone on the ground, till 
they could breathe again. 

“TIT wind ought to die by sundown,” coughed 
Tim, with streaming eyes. 

Ralph's heart was thudding like distant hoof- 
beats; but he raced none the less swiftly, as a 
flying spark sent a red tongue of the enemy forward 
in a menacing V. 

Though the sun yet hung like a mammoth orange 
above the horizon at their backs, the burning needles 
glowed red in the smoky gloom. 

Suddenly Tim's arms dropped limp at his sides 
and he stumbled nearly to the ground. No longer 
did his undernourished muscles ache like the ache 
of a tooth. They were well-nigh nerveless now. 
Ralph studied him anxiously. 

“ Lie down flat for a minute,” he urged. But Tim 
was too desperate to heed. Making one more heart¬ 
sick effort, he stumbled on, — on toward the ridge 
of the mountains among the rocks, on whose crest 
they might still hope to vanquish the conflagration. 

There were a couple of hundred feet yet to go, — 
but that home run was going to make all the dif¬ 
ference between holding the fire and letting it get 
away from them. Ralph would have kept doggedly 
on with their back-fire, but Tim saw that the thing 
was impossible now. There was just one shred of 
hope in the up-standing bowlders that, —100 feet 
to the left of their back-fire, formed the caudal 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 131 


appendage of the mountain spur. These naked 
rocks made a natural barrier; and between them, 
connecting them in an irregular fashion, were little 
ridges of higher ground where the forest litter was 
scantier than elsewhere. It would be comparatively 
easy to back-fire a zigzag path from one bowlder 
to another. 

Here the wind blew down the little gulch between 
their ridge and the next, and the fire was traveling 
fast. But they did the one thing they had to 
do. Somehow they floundered through that one 
last nightmare of effort. And their line was 
complete! 

Tim literally dropped in his tracks, too exhausted 
even to know when his stronger comrade dragged 
him to a safer distance from the breath of the 
defeated foe. 

Savage and terrifying, the swift flames snapped 
through the forest aisles, while the smoke clouds 
rolled across the bloody sky. Ralph watched, 
hypnotized, as their fire-trench, stretching brown 
before the invading hosts, brought them to a stand¬ 
still. Suddenly one red tongue, more daring than 
the rest, leaped the boundary and ran like a boa- 
constrictor through the tindered leaves beyond. 

At that moment Ralph was near to giving up in 
despair. He supposed he had reached the limit 
of endurance. Were all their efforts to have been 
in vain? He remembered vaguely, as in a dream, 
that they had meant to stand guard at the last 


132 


LOST RIVER 


against just such maneuvers. Tim was out of the 
running. But from some deep-lying reserve of 
sheer hardihood, he now summoned the strength 
to carry him back along the entire trench. When 
he had somehow managed to whip out the last 
spark that menaced, clear back to the very river, 
what was his amazement to find Tim stumbling 
feebly in his wake! 

Eating voraciously to the very edge of the water, 
the flames now met complete annihilation as the 
wind blew them hissing into the river. 

It was over! This time the woods were really 
saved! And it was not till long afterward that the 
boys fully realized how their own lives had been 
jeopardized. 

That night they crawled under an overhanging 
ledge, after gathering a pile of dry leaves, and slept, 
too benumbed in mind and body even to think of 
supper. The wind that blew down on them from 
the smoky ground kept them warm. 

It was not until morning that they thought of 
the little ’coon, and wondered what had become of 
him. 

They were both blackened comically, when the 
new day showed them to each other. They howled 
with merriment as they caught sight of each other’s 
faces, streaked by rubbing with blackened sleeves. 
But a good scouring in the warm shallows of Lost 
River — as they now called it — brightened them 
up amazingly. 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 133 


They called Lotor, searching in vain for his tiny 
hand-like foot-prints. And their hearts were heavy 
at thought of what might have befallen their pet. 

Breakfast was simpler than it was cheerful, for 
they found a grouse hen with wings too singed to 
fly. But the meal ended joyously. For just as 
they were picking the bones, Lotor suddenly leaped 
to Ralph's shoulder. And the new prints in the 
mud showed that he had crossed a fallen log from 
the other side of the river. 

Their muscles were stiff, the river impassable with 
fallen timber, and the ground still felt hot to their feet 
in places. The charred stumps glowed dully even in 
the sunlight. No use pushing on that day! 

Tim winced every time he moved his shoulders. 
And Ralph groaned as he rose to his feet: “Can 
you feel my bones creak?" 

“ You look about ten pounds thinner," laughed Tim. 

“Hurray, then! Three cheers!" yelled the 
delighted fat boy. “ This is the life!" 

Yes, the burnt wood would be impossible! But 
they crossed the river on Lotor's fallen log and took 
to the opposite bank. 

After a forenoon's rest, Tim, exploring for berries, 
came upon something that sent him whooping back 
to camp. “A trail! A trail!" he announced, 
falling over a stump in his excitement. “Now 
we're all right." 

“What kind of trail? Another of those deer 
trails?" asked Ralph skeptically. 


134 


LOST RIVER 


“No, a blazed trail! The trees have been clipped 
with an ax, for ever and ever so far.” 

With hearts beating high, the pair made plans 
to follow it. Would it lead to a settlement? Or 
even to a logging camp? Any human habitation! 
Some one who could tell them where they were! 

The line was an old one, but as only the pines and 
spruces had been clipped, it was easy to follow it 
along the brookside, because the resin had oozed 
in lumps over the wounds. 

Presently Ralph, who was in the lead, noticed a 
longer slash than the others; then he could see no 
more spots, though he scanned every tree for rods 
ahead. But Tim, more familiar with trail work, 
knew to turn when he came to the long clip, — and 
there was the line following a new direction. 

This led them, here into a scramble over a steep 
ledge, there through a boggy stretch, till suddenly 
they found themselves staring at a tumble-down 
old shanty, whose litter of rusty traps proclaimed 
it a trapper’s line they had been following. 

“Might ’a’ known it!” rasped Tim. “A lumber 
trail would ’a’ led uphill.” 

“Why?” 

“Use your nut!” At that moment the dis¬ 
heartened boys were close to quarreling. 

“We’ll wander ’round till winter sets in, at this 
rate,” growled Ralph. “And then what?” 

“Well?' Then what?” snapped Tim, who was 
trying hard not to cry. 


CHAPTER XII 
The Blazed Trail 

Two more discouraged boys it would have been 
hard to find, when they came to the deserted cabin. 
When would they find themselves? 

The blazed trail led on, and they doggedly de¬ 
cided to follow as far as it went. Another eight 
or ten miles, and they came to another ruined 
shack, on another tributary stream. — (A decent 
sized brook, it was.) The high water marks showed 
that it must be deep during the spring floods. 

Ralph had his eye focused for a surveyor’s line, 
and hoping against hope, he scanned each tree in 
his line of vision for the two notches, while Tim 
picked out the old trapper’s trail. 

“Tim,” said the older boy, as night overtook 
them in a grove of hemlocks, “how early does 
winter set in, up here?” 

“I’ve seen four feet of snow in October.” 

“What if we got stuck, away up here?” 

“For the winter?” 

“Exactly.” 


135 


136 


LOST RIVER 


“We could go considerable, after snowfall.” 

“Yes, if we didn’t freeze — nights.” 

“We’d never freeze so long as we had an ax.” 

“Why wouldn’t we? The wind goes through one, 
even a night like this.” 

For answer, the backwoods boy clipped off 
a sapling, and jamming the sharpened butt into 
the ground, braced the other end on a pair of 
“shears.” With this as a ridgepole, he felled and 
dragged in half a dozen thick young hemlocks 
(with Ralph’s assistance), and stripping off the 
limbs, laid them shingle fashion for a roof. 

This made a capital windbreak. “ It’d turn snow, 
all right,” Ralph pronounced. “With a good night- 
fire —” 

“Pretty snug, eh?” 

While Tim began building a thick, springy browse 
bed, Ralph took the ax and attacked an old fallen 
hemlock, clipping off the hard resinous limbs well 
above the stubborn butts. These he arranged on 
the cleared space in front of the lean-to that he had 
prepared for them. With these blazing cheerily 
and reflecting the heat back into the hemlock cavern, 
the hoot of the owls seemed less lonely, and the 
thought of winter less appalling. 

“Aw, we’ll get out o’ here all right, before winter,” 
said Tim.. Then, as if to contradict his own op¬ 
timism, he added: “Anyway, we could build a log 
cabin, couldn’t we?” 

Log cabin was a word that held its fascination 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 137 


for Ralph Merritt, while Tim had helped his father 
build an extra cabin on their place. 

“How'd we hoist the logs?” demanded Ralph. 

“ That’s easy,” and Tim illustrated with a hand¬ 
ful of sticks. Trimming these to about a twelve- 
inch length, he first notched them at each end, 
driving shorter sticks into the ground to hold them 
in place as he laid them in a wall, butt and small 
ends alternating, locked together at the corners 
where he had whittled out the notches. 

When the walls were of even height, “Now then,” 
he said, “here's the way we could raise the upper 
logs.” And he slanted a couple of poles against 
one wall as skids. Then, fastening a shoe string as 
“rope” on either end of the top log, he passed the 
free ends under the “log” to be lifted, and explained 
that Ralph, supposedly waiting above, would hoist 
the log with the ropes while Tim shoved it up the 
skidway. 

“ Bully,” said Ralph. “ But how about the roof ? ” 

Tim fastened a “ridgepole” in place, then showed 
how the rafters could be slanted at a pitch to shed 
the rain. They could shingle it with one or more 
layers of heavy bark, weighting the shingles down 
with poles tied together in pairs at the eaves to 
prevent their slipping off. 

They could build a fireplace at one end with stone, 
and gravel would make a dry floor, while for a door, 
they could use split logs and ax-riven catch and 
hinges. Only the door and fireplace openings would 


138 


LOST RIVER 


have to be left as they raised the walls, since they 
had no saw. 

“That must be the way the pioneers did it," 
Ralph commented. 

The boys planned on, enthusiastically. They 
would build a pole bunk across the end opposite 
the fireplace. They would split logs and make a 
table. They almost forgot to go to sleep that 
night. 

“My!” breathed Tim, at last, as he glanced up 
at the glittering sky. The stars seemed unusually 
brilliant. He was thinking of the Indian legend 
that the Milky Way was the trail worn by the 
moccasins of the departed, on their way to the 
Happy Hunting Grounds. 

“To think,” mused Ralph, “that each star is a 
sun. Our troubles aren't so big after all.” 

“A sun — just like our sun?” 

“Yes, — maybe larger. With its planets, its 
earths, revolving around it! Our sun is just a 
yellow star.” 

“Then if a star is green, does it give off green 
sunlight?” 

“Er — I suppose so, if there are any people on 
its planets to see.” 

“But are there?” marveled the backwoods boy. 

“People? Oh, of course they don't know. 
There's been a theory that Venus may be inhabited. 
You see, Venus is pretty tropical, just the way our 
earth used to be. Too tropical for folks like us, 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 139 


anyway. But it's getting cooler and cooler. And 
sometime this earth may get too cold to live on. 
But perhaps by that time Venus will be just about 
right. And if only we have the right kind of 
aeroplane —” 

Tim stared wide-eyed into the starry spaces. 
“I wonder if that will be in our time?” 

“I should worry!” laughed his comrade. “It 
takes millions of years to make much of a change.” 

“Well,” Tim drew a deep breath, “I wish Pap 
held more to book learnin'!” 

Ralph saw he had an appreciative audience. 
“You know when Dad and I were in Colorado, 
there were hot pools that we could boil eggs in. 
And our guide told us that the center of the earth 
was so hot — that —” 

“That what?” 

“Don't know as I can tell it straight. Anyway, 
it's something to do with the earth cooling and 
shrinking. It's what makes volcanoes and geysers.” 

“And earthquakes?” 

“Yes. And — and — and just now Venus is 
hotter than the Congo, and it rains all the time 
there, — but perhaps by the time we're ready to 
migrate—" he laughed. 

“Nothin' doin'!” decided Tim. “This earth is 
all right for me.” Stating which, he rolled himself 
into one end of the blanket and for once was sound 
asleep before Ralph. 

It always seemed to be night when things hap- 


140 


LOST RIVER 


pened. This night something woke them both at 
once, — what, they could not see. Then the in¬ 
truder crossed the circle of the firelight. It was a 
skunk visiting camp! Frozen with dismay, they 
peered from their blanket, to spy a black and white 
animal the size of a cat, only with an enormously 
bushy tail. The two broad white stripes down his 
dusky back, merging into one at the neck, could not 
be mistaken. 

What to do they did not know. Any hostile 
move on their part might bring its punishment. 
So, not daring to move, they lay there, while the 
caller inspected their larder to heart’s content. 

His hind quarters were humped higher than his 
fore quarters, and his pointed snout bore a narrow 
stripe of white down its mid-line. He walked with 
a mincing step, like no animal they had ever seen 
before, planting his feet flat, with claws out. The 
tip and under surface of the tail were white. 

(Long afterwards, Ralph used to see him in his 
dreams, — first just the white V coming through 
the dark.) 

The creature eyed them absolutely without fear. 

After awhile, he sauntered off, and the squeak of 
a wood-mouse told that he had found a meal to his 
liking, — after which the boys dared to sleep. 

The warmth of the morning sunlight raised the 
spirits of the two adventurers. Of course they 
would come out somewhere, — and that, soon. 
Only they had better follow back to the river. 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 141 

Lotor did much to raise their spirits at this stage 
of their travels. 

The rascal was in and out of their pockets like a 
squirrel, — and Ralph discovered that he hoarded 
as well as robbed, when he found a murdered wood- 
mouse cached in his handkerchief pocket. 

Shortly afterwards Tim missed his knife, and 
searched for it far and wide. The ’coon was miss¬ 
ing at the same time. They found him worrying 
the shining instrument, which he was just about 
to bury. 

He chewed off one of Ralph’s buttons, and there 
wasn’t an article in their possession that was safe. 
One night it was the flint-stone, and great was the 
perturbation of the voyagers as they thought what 
their trip would be if they had to rub sticks for every 
fire. That time the cub was punished by being 
tied to a tree. But a bark berry pail also hung in 
the tree, and it was not long till the little ’coon’s 
sides had stretched the exact amount that the berry 
supply had shrunken. 

After that they hung their supplies from cords of 
rootlets from the branches. 

Such a handsome fellow was young Lotor, with 
his silky fur and his innocent eyes and his clever 
hand-like paws, that the boys spoiled him dreadfully. 

He was always sleepy by day, and mischievous 
when they wanted to sleep. There was nothing he 
would not eat, from the grubs and beetles under the 
crumbling bark of a fallen log, to the roots and 


142 


LOST RIVER 


greens Tim was always ferreting out. He was also 
diligent in his quest of ants' nests, which the boys 
found were sour enough to have been used instead 
of vinegar in their salad. 

But alas, there were still a few birds whose little 
brood had not hatched, and the way that 'coon 
would steal along a limb, deaf to all protests on the 
part of the parent birds, till he could crush his paw 
into the shells and suck them clean of the contents, 
was a thing to remember. 

One great drawback had been that they had no 
kettle, — for the birch bark was continually catch¬ 
ing fire and spilling its contents. Then Tim had 
the good fortune to turn a large turtle on its back, 
which he promptly converted into turtle soup on 
the half-shell, — and there was their cooking-pot! 

Ralph” hit upon the idea of carving a hook out 
of a fish bone (though he never succeeded in tempt¬ 
ing a trout with the clumsy device, history states). 

“If you had somewhere to blow in ten cents," 
he asked about this time, “what would you buy?" 

“Sugar," said Tim promptly, though Ralph had 
expected him to say a trout hook. “If maple sugar 
were a dollar a pound, I'd lay in a supply just the 
same." 

“That's right!" vowed the stout boy longingly. 
“Couldn't we tap a tree?" 

“Not this time o' year. Nev' mind. Wait and 
maybe Lotor will find us a bee tree," encouraged the 
guide's son. 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 143 


“ Funny how values change in the woods,” mused 
the rich man's son. “Now if I could have three 
wishes, do you know what I'd wish for first? A 
$2 pair of sneakers. And second, something sweet.” 

“Pap V I c'd do fine, country like this,” said 
the backwoods boy, “give us a coupla more blankets 
V a fryin'-pan V kettle, and of course plenty o' 
bacon V corn meal, — and maybe tea V sugar, 
and salt. We c'd do fine! Add a coupla trout hooks 
an' line, and we'd be livin' high.” 

Ralph's eyes began to sparkle. “You bet I'm 
going to show Dad this river. Listen here! 
How's this? Canvas canoe (light at the carries), 
and not much more than you'd take yourself. No 
more of this air-mattress, white-tablecloth sort of 
thing we started out with! Though I'd put in a 
few more flourishes than we've got right now. For 
instance, I wouldn't mind eating trout three times 
a day if only we had a few relishes to make it dif¬ 
ferent.” 

“What do you mean, relishes?” 

“Why, lemons, and horse-radish, and tomato 
paste — that's compact enough, — and pork fat, 
and onions, and things like that. And I'll bet that 
black rye bread would keep fresh a week, to start 
out with. Then butter in a tin that we could sink 
to keep it cool. Oh, and then it would make things 
easier to have a waterproof silk lean-to apiece, — 
say seven by nine, — and then each of us could 
wear one like a cape when it rained; and at night 


144 


LOST RIVER 


we could put the two up over a ridgepole like a 
tent. That stuff weighs next to nothing at all, 
and I saw a fellow that had a green one he carried 
in his sweater pocket.” 

“Bet they cost a heap?” 

“ Only $5 — $6 his cost. But he made it himself.” 

“ Dunno where I'd ever get the $5. But it would 
sure be camping pretty snug,” and Tim's eyes 
gleamed longingly as Ralph continued to plan. 

“And a change of underwear — wool gauze — to 
put on dry at night, I’ve heard, and I can believe 
it now. I kicked like a steer when Dad put in these 
woollies,” and Ralph mopped his brow. “But it's 
all to the good when night comes.” 

The day was warm and still. The boys per¬ 
spired freely. Suddenly Tim stopped to peer after 
a bee that rose in half-circles, gorged with the 
nectar of the white flowerets of a clump of boneset. 
Mounting above the river in spirals, it darted off 
down-stream. Another followed, and yet others. 

“Such light-colored ones, — must hive in white 
pine,” exclaimed Tim. “Wouldn't it be great to 
find it?” 

Ralph's eyes danced. “Some feed we'd have!” 

“Yes, 'n' we c'd sell some, too.” 

“Sell some!” 

“When we come to a sport camp or somewhere. 
'R exchange it for grub.” 

“That's an idea!” agreed the other. 

It was therefore with yelps of delight that the pair 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 145 


shortly heard a subdued humming proceeding from 
their left. Tim went scouting in the direction of 
the sound. Sure enough, it led straight to an old 
hollow pine, not far behind the fire-break. 

“Talk about luck! ” he howled joyously. “Give 
me the ax!” And he swung at the trunk with a 
war whoop. 

“Great Scott! Don't do that!” screamed Tim 
wildly. But it was too late. With a sizzling rush, 
a black cloud of infuriated insects poured out of 
the hole and swirled madly about the two boys. 
In less time than it takes to tell it, Ralph had one 
eye swollen shut and Tim was howling from a dozen 
stings. 

“Murder!” gasped the fat boy, swinging his 
arms about his head as if suddenly gone insane. 
“They'll eat us alive!” 

But Tim was too nearly frantic to hear. 


CHAPTER XIII 
Treasure-Trove 

The wild bees, crazed by the near approach of 
the forest fire to their treasure-trove, attacked the 
boys with such infuriated vengeance that Ralph 
really thought his end had come, — though Lotor 
was already feasting, unperturbed. 

“Pull y'r hat down over y'r eyes,” yelled Tim. 
“This way! Ralph, come in here!” and he led 
straight into the thickest of the brush. “Put 
y'r head down! And gimme that ax,” and Tim, 
with hat lowered and collar turned up, began chop¬ 
ping frantically at an old stump, from whose heart 
he dug a double handful of punk wood. 

“Here, light this up,” he commanded the dancing 
Scout. “Then keep your face in the smudge.” 
And in a moment both boys had quieted the insects 
that still clung to their persons. 

“Now, you just hold still an’ don't move a mite!” 
ordered the backwoods boy. 

“What are you going to do?” squealed Ralph, 
as Tim came at him with his jack-knife. 

“Take out the stings.” 


146 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 147 

“Not much, you aren't,” and Ralph backed 
away. 

“Hold still,” said Tim sternly. “Don't I know 
what I'm about? I’m gqing to ask you to do 
the same for me in a minute. Y'see, the poison, 
the part that stings so, is in a little sac, with one 
end stuck into your skin. What I'm going to try 
to do, if my thumb nail’s long enough, is to pull 
out the stickers without bursting the sac. Don't 
rub, now, or you'll burst 'em sure. A sting isn't 
really bad at all if we can get those sacs out.” 

The operation was a delicate one in the extreme. 
“Ought to have a pair of fine pliers,” suggested 
Ralph. 

“There, now,” sighed Tim, when he had suc¬ 
cessfully extracted six out of seven of the stings, 
including the one on Ralph's eyelid, “lucky thing, 
let me tell you, you didn't have time to rub your 
eye, or you'd have been a whole lot worse bunged 
up. Now pull mine out, will you?” 

Ralph's fingers were not very nimble, but fortu¬ 
nately Tim had pulled his hat down at the first 
murmur, and so had suffered only on his neck and 
hands, — though that was bad enough. 

“There, I got out part of them, anyway,” apolo¬ 
gized Ralph, as Tim gave a yell. “But I'm afraid 
I squeezed that one right into your neck.” 

“I should say you did!” howled Tim, running 
back to the river for a lump of clay, his punky 
held carefully in both hands. Ralph followed suit, 


148 LOST RIVER 

and soon they were plastered like so many mud 
pies on legs. 

“Now do this,” directed Tim, tying his ban¬ 
danna over the lower part of his face, “That is, 
if you are still game?” 

“Yes,” Ralph hesitated, “sure I'm game. I 
couldn't feel any worse, anyway, so we might as 
well have the honey.” 

“Here — let me tie this over your eye, it's safer 
than clay,” and Tim snatched up a puff-ball, apply¬ 
ing the white inner side to the fat boy's injured 
member. “Maybe you can fit your hat band down 
over it, so you can keep your handkerchief over the 
rest of your face.” 

Ralph was now all curiosity as to the bee hunt. 

“Wish they were in a fallen log,” he sighed, as 
they once more approached the hollow pine. 

“Too many critters c'u'd get at 'em then,” said 
Tim. “But oncet I found a hive in a big ledge, 
'way back in a cranny of the rocks. Steady, now. 
Two of us'll get 'em excited again. We've got to 
keep these smudges going.” 

Both boys tied their coat sleeves tight about 
their wrists with rootlets. Then they cut a couple 
of five-foot sticks and bound a fistful of the punk 
wood around an end of each stick. 

As the old tree already had a southern slant, 
Ralph cut a clean, big-chipped notch halfway 
through on that side, then passed the ax to Tim, 
who notched the other side, just enough higher to 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 149 


throw the tree in the opposite direction. As the 
old sentinel began to crack, both boys stepped to 
one side, well out of the way in case the trunk should 
strike an obstacle and shoot backward from the 
stump. “ Dandy way to get killed, if you don't 
pull this off just right, our Scout master says," 
cautioned Ralph. 

The bees had been bad enough while the chopping 
was going on, but the instant the tree began to fall, 
— “Z-z-z-z!" they poured out of their doorway, 
the maddest things that ever drew breath of life. 

Instantly Tim lighted his punky and applied it 
to the hole. The fumes quieted those of the in¬ 
sects still within, and Ralph could chop away the 
outer bark and get at the honey. There were 
enough bees left outside, however, to swarm around 
Ralph's head till he had to brush them off in order 
to see. 

“Look out, don't bleed the comb," cautioned 
Tim, swinging his punky above the golden mass. 
“Better leave it till we can make a couple of pails 
to take it in." 

Curiously enough, no sooner had their store 
actually begun to disappear than the bees who were 
unaffected by the slumberous fumes gave up try¬ 
ing to fight and started carrying away as much of 
their larder as they could save from the invaders. 
However, Ralph did get one sting on the back of 
his neck, to which Tim applied some honey, which 
relieved the pain. 


150 


LOST RIVER 


Ralph made quite a presentable pail, first soften¬ 
ing the birch bark by heating, then sewing a splint 
around the upper edge with a pointed sliver for a 
needle, in which Tim's knife had carved an eye. 
He used water-soaked rootlets for thread. 

This vessel he finished with a hoop for a handle, 
— one which went clear across the bottom to help 
relieve the strain. 

Tim on his part finally plastered his whole per¬ 
son, neck, hands, and face, with clay, to take out 
the inflammation and act as a protective veil, when 
they should remove the honey. 

Ralph suddenly began to laugh. “I'd like to 
take a snapshot of you about now," he chortled. 

“Say, I just wish you had a pocket mirror your¬ 
self!" shouted Tim, doubling with mirth. 

“I think the pair of us had better go into the 
movies," Ralph managed to gasp. 

They set to work on the birch-bark buckets, 
and removed their find in great golden chunks. 

“Um," sniffed both boys, when they had buried 
their punkies in the clay of the river bank and once 
more breathed quiet air. 

“Taste it!" gloated Ralph, sampling their find. 
The bouquet of the wild honey had a half 
sweet, half pungent fragrance, perhaps not so sweet 
as that of the cultivated kind. 

“Wonder what it'll bring?" ruminated Tim, 
who knew they must surely come out soon at Lake 
Umbagog. For there was now no doubt in their 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 151 


minds that it had been the Margalloway they had 
been following. 

“Do you know,” said Ralph, “I should think we 
could sell some mushrooms, too. And berries! 
Couldn't we take them down on the raft?” 

“Say! We could that, if we weren't 'too long 
on the way!” Tim enthused. “If we could 
just get 'em to the Lake resort, couldn't we lay in a 
supply of bacon and corn meal and flapjack flour, 
and coffee, and baked beans, and — ” 

“Here! Stop that!” begged Ralph, his mouth 
fairly watering. “No need to torture a fellow any 
more than you have to.” 

Tim laughed. “It's just as much torture for me, 
you big stiff, you! Do you think you're the only one 
who would relish a good, steaming hot cup of —” 

But a well-aimed puff-ball put an end to the 
pipe-dream. 

“Get busy and help me make some nice little 
birch-bark boxes, then,” said Tim, sharpening his 
jack-knife on the sole of his shoe. “I reckon we 
can find enough on fallen logs. Then you can pick 
berries whilst I hunt for mushrooms.” 

“That's fair play.” And the two got to work 
with a will. 

“Look out you don't poison people, too,” Ralph 
warned his companion gravely. 

Tim sniffed. “I'm on'y going to pick the kinds 
I c'n swear to,” he vouched.. “And I'm not goin' 
to let you do any of the pickin'.” 


152 


LOST RIVER 


Ralph ignored the repartee. “ That's right, I 
don't want to take any chances with people's lives, 
I'll stick to puff-balls and those russulas we had, 
and —" 

“Well, they's lots of puff-balls," meditated the 
backwoods boy, picking one of the stemless growths 
and breaking it open to make sure it was fresh, — 
and really stemless. “But maybe I’ll find some 
of that beefsteak fungus. Hello, listen! What 
was that?" And his eyes followed the familiar 
call that now floated to him on the ears of the wind. 
They rested on a fallen tree trunk some distance 
up-stream. “It's the 'coon, as I live!" he cried. 
“ The little scamp! How'd he ever get there?" 

This time Ralph won out in the race to their pet, 
who clung to the uncertain bridge that swirled about 
in the current, thrusting a pole out to him. 

“Say, Ralph," Tim shouted as he scanned the 
river, “I don't see a sign of the raft." 

“Did you expect it to stay parked like an elec¬ 
tric runabout," laughed Ralph, “while we've been 
fighting fire and robbing bee trees? Let's get busy 
and make another." 

That they did. But after allowing Ralph to 
launch a fallen log that promptly settled to the 
bottom of the river (it probably was green oak), 
Tim directed operations, deciding on something 
very like a logomaran. 

Seeing that there were several dry logs along the 
shore, — doubtless brought down some mountain 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 153 


brook by the spring freshet, — he selected those 
he knew to be white pine, one large log, and two 
lighter ones. 

The big one they notched deeply on the upper 
side, — once across each end for the crossbars to 
fit in, and a little each side of the middle a pair of 
notches for their feet. 

At the rear end they leveled off a little platform for 
the prospective cargo to rest upon, cutting smaller 
notches that their bark pails might be firmly lashed 
in place, once the log was launched. 

This craft they now pried off into the shallows 
with a stout pole for a lever. “That'll be all right, 
if it doesn't turn with us," said Ralph. 

“I'm going to fix it so it won't," promised Tim. 
Notching the two smaller logs for side floats with a 
notch at each end, he next hunted up a couple of 
crosspieces long enough to tie the side floats about 
four feet from either side of the big log. And with 
Ralph's aid he waded into the water and lashed the 
crossbars firmly into the notches provided for them. 

The result was a log so balanced that it would not 
turn beneath their weight, — a craft light enough 
for rapid poling at that. 

Then they went back to the mushroom hunt. 

Suddenly Tim gave an exclamation of delight. 
“Look up there!" he cried. “Beefsteak fungus, 
as I live!" And he proceeded to dance a war 
dance. “ We'll have broiled steak for dinner." 
And he was halfway up the tree after his find before 


154 


LOST RIVER 


his buddy could even get his eyes focused on the 
liver-like wedge. 

“Beefsteak? Honest?” demanded the fat boy 
incredulously, examining the fan-shaped layers, red 
on top and white beneath. 

“ Surest thing you know. Nobody could make a 
mistake on this one,” Tim shouted to him, showing 
him the soft porous under side. “You sometimes 
find 'em on old oak stumps too.” 

“Yes, I've seen them in my mushroom book,” 
said Ralph. “Come on, let's cook it, quick! Does 
it really taste like steak?” 

“Try it and see,” and Tim smiled mysteriously. 
And sure enough, “It's just like rare beef,” Ralph 
decided rapturously. “If you could only find some 
more of that, now —” 

But Tim's ramble through the sun-flecked woods 
brought him no more such luck, though he followed 
a deer trail to the height of land and back again to 
the river, 'eyes focused only for the fungi above his 
head or shoving up through the leaves at his feet. 

Instead, he came upon a patch of pale greenish 
brown morels, whose egg-shaped surfaces were pitted 
like a coarse sponge. Most of these grew as large 
as his wrist, some round, more of them conical. 
These cones were hollow inside, as were the stems; 
and when the boys tried a dishful, they found them 
sweet and juicy. So did the little 'coon. 

“You can't mistake 'em for anything that isn't 
good to eat,” crowed Tim, “not with these pits 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 155 


all over 'em. You'll find 'em thick, along about 
June." 

There were also several good-sized clusters of 
coral-shaped fungi, creamy white like cauliflower, 
or pale yellow. 

“ Here's another you can't possibly make a mis¬ 
take on," urged Tim, as Ralph peered dubiously at 
the bark platter on which their snack was set forth. 
“That is, not for anything poison, though not all 
kinds are sweet, and you have to smell them to 
make sure they're fresh. I like 'em raw, too, — 
I figure that with all we have here now we ought to 
get a pretty fancy price." 

“Then mushrooms are all sorts of shapes, aren't 
they?" mused Ralph. 

“Yep. And oh, just think how these would taste 
fried in butter, with a slice of toast underneath and 
a cup of —" Tim was beginning, when he was un¬ 
ceremoniously overturned and sat upon. 

“Hey, there, I'll have you arrested for cruelty 
to animals," hammered Ralph. 

“Well then — let me up and — let's take this 
stuff on to where we can sell it, and get some grub." 

The suggestion had its effect. “A'right, then, 
careful now and don't you spill my berries," as 
Tim began loading the raft. “And we'll have to 
do some mighty careful poling, with this cargo, 
let me tell you!" 

The first stage of their voyage lay past the dis¬ 
heartening ruins that still smoked yellowly, with 


156 


LOST RIVER 


here and there a log glowing angry red, and an acrid 
smell of smoke in the air. 

From the opposite bank the hills stretched away 
in waves of living green, — where an opening per¬ 
mitted the view, — with never a sign of human 
habitation for as far as eye could see. 

The boys were tanned and grimy, and their hair 
was in a mat, their nails were ragged, and their 
clothing worn to shreds. They looked every inch 
the hobo. But while Ralph had appreciably lost 
weight under the strenuous regime, — (his muscles 
had hardened wonderfully), — Tim had actually 
gained. The long days in the open had whetted 
his appetite till he had taken a new lease on life, 
entirely losing the puny look with which he had 
started out. Both boys, though worn by their 
privations, were stronger and hardier than would 
have been believed possible a few weeks before. 

They had also, — Ralph especially, — lost a good 
many of the fears with which they had always 
peopled the wild. And they had gained propor¬ 
tionately in ingenuity. But oh, how mortally tired 
they were of their limited fare! And how they 
longed to feel that they were once more within 
reach of human help, should need arise! 

“Tim, what if this isn’t the Margalloway after 
all?” Ralph worried now. “What if that wasn’t 
Lake Umbagog? What if it was just some old 
deserted lumber camp we saw on the shore and when 
we get there we won’t find any one?” 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 157 


The guide's son didn't in the least know the 
answer, but he felt in duty bound to encourage his 
father's charge. “Sure we'll find some one," he 
declared stoutly. 

“Anyway, if we ever do come out, do you know, 
my dad is going to — well," and Ralph swallowed, 
embarrassed. “I guess he'll say you piloted me 
pretty well." 

“F'rget it," Tim flushed, pretending to sight 
some strange bird in the tree-tops. 

“You bet if ever I get back to my own feather¬ 
bed," the rich man's son hastened to change the 
subject, “I'll have enough sense to stay there." 
And he groaned inwardly at prospect of another 
night on the ground. 

“I'll be glad to sample Maw's cookin' ag'in," 
chimed in the representative of the Pine Tree State, 
who though he had suffered less, would be glad 
enough to end the suspense of being lost. “My, 
wouldn't I fall for a slab of hot apple pie right now 
— with cream?" 

And yet, after all their longing for human kind, 
when that night found them back at their camp¬ 
fire after a brief detour, they felt nothing but trepi¬ 
dation as their eyes lighted on the print of a man's 
hob-nailed shoe, in the bare place they had scraped 
around their cook-fire. 

“Some one's been prowlin' 'round here," Tim 
muttered, voice lowered apprehensively. And he 
looked to see if any of their stores were missing, 


158 


LOST RIVER 


while Ralph recalled all the tales he had read of 
desperadoes who sought refuge in the woods. 

“ What do you suppose he's up to ?” he wondered. 
And his ears fairly twitched as he listened for the 
snap of a twig that might mean the return of the 
intruder. Nor did he have long to wait for the 
sound of approaching footfalls! 


CHAPTER XIV 
The Ranger's Story 

The two boys were not left long in suspense. The 
brush parted, and into the circle of the firelight rode 
a Forest Ranger, clothes blackened like their own. 

“How long have you been camping here?" he 
asked sharply, his keen gray eyes narrowed as he 
studied them. 

“Just to-night," said Ralph. 

“ Got permits ?" 

“ No." 

“Where were you before?" 

“Up-river." 

“Sure now?" 

The boys told their story. 

The Ranger cross-questioned them. “If that 
proves to be true," he said slowly, “then you boys 
deserve medals for bravery in fire-fighting. If not, — 
well, some careless camper started that fire. Until I 
have the evidence in hand, I shall have to suspect 
every camper in this region. You boys are the 
only campers I have been able to discover." 

“You can telephone my father, if you don't be¬ 
lieve us," said Ralph. 

“Unfortunately, the lines are down, — thanks to 
the fire. A dangerous state of affairs it is, too, at 
159 


160 


LOST RIVER 


this time of year! I’ve got to impress you boys into 
the Service to help me put them up again, — before 
another fire breaks out. Then we shall see.” 

“If you don’t believe us, you’ll find our names on 
strips of beech, all along the river. That will show 
which side of the fire we were on!” protested Ralph. 

“All right, that might come in handy as evidence, 
if it comes to a conviction. How do we know when 
you left the beech chips?” 

The boys were beginning to realize that they might 
have a hard time proving their innocence. 

“We’ll camp here to-night,” said the Ranger, 
briskly. “And in the morning we’ll make my sta¬ 
tion and start on the line work. ’ ’ Then, more kindly, 
“Had supper?” He laid out before their delighted 
eyes bacon, coffee, a small can of condensed milk, 
half a dozen baking-powder biscuit, and a cake of 
maple sugar. 

His eyes twinkled as he saw the ravenous way in 
which the boys fell upon the meal. 

“You want to build your fire in a pit, windy 
weather like this,” he cautioned them. 

He also produced a calico bag, which he stuffed 
with soft browse, and insisted that they all three 
sleep crosswise of it, with the foot pieced out with 
boughs. If they were under arrest, they thought, 
at least their jailer had a warm heart. 

He also had soap and a towel, which did not in¬ 
terest the boys so much; though he tactfully heated 
a kettleful of water, which he turned into a piece of 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 161 


waterproofing set up on an improvised tripod, and 
suggested that they would travel better next day if 
they first gave their feet a good soaking, — a fact 
they found surprisingly true. 

Then he insisted, when morning came, that the 
footsore youngsters ride, with their scorched soles, 
while he led the horse. 

The rangers' cabin was a two-room log structure 
with a cook-stove and an artfully built cupboard in 
one room, a canvas cot and table in the other, with 
his maps and other official paraphernalia. Despite 
their uneasiness, the boys fairly reveled in the luxury 
of soft blankets and tinned beef and beans, to say 
nothing of the Ranger's flapjacks and homemade 
maple sirup. They also thoroughly enjoyed the 
long days on horseback, — for they took turn and 
turn about. The chopping of new poles with the 
Ranger's wonderful sharp-edged ax was mere play, 
as was all that went with the setting up of the tele¬ 
phone line to Lake Umbagog. For their “Lost 
River" was the Margalloway, as they had suspected. 
Soon they were plying the Ranger with questions 
as to his work. 

He, too, had visited Loon Pond, it seemed, and 
had watched the otter family. The bitch, he said, 
despite her dog-like fighting qualities, purrs like a 
cat when nursing her cubs, and carries them about 
in her mouth, even when swimming, if she wants to 
move them when they are little. She also washes 
her face with her paws. 


162 


LOST RIVER 


“Do you know how to tell an otter's track from 
a badger's?" he asked the boys. 

“No. How?" asked Ralph. 

“Can't you guess?" 

“ Let's see. They drag their tails, don't they ? " 

“That's it! You tell by the tail-print." 

“There aren't many otters," said Tim. 

“Precious few, these days, — in America." 

The boys wished they had seen more of them. 

“Never mind, some day you'll make a camp- 
canoe trip along here," the Ranger consoled them. 
“As it is, you've had a rare chance to see one of the 
shyest creatures in the North Woods." 

“You mean the panther?" asked Tim. 

“ I had the otters more particularly in mind." 

“Gee!" exclaimed Ralph. “I wish you'd tell 
my Scout Master that!" 

“You young rascals are lucky, though, those loons 
didn't bite a chunk out of you. If you'd tried to 
take a fledgling, I expect they would have. They 
have beaks like steel traps." He glanced rue¬ 
fully at his scarred hand. “Got that from one 
I shot when I was a kid. Served me right, too. 
I didn't even have the excuse of being hungry. 
But—" 

“Ugh!" shivered Tim, thinking of how he had 
been exposed in his little pink swimming costume, 
as the great birds circled overhead. 

“Wolverines are funny things," laughed Ralph. 
“The one we saw ran like a measuring worm. I 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 163 

mean he looked like one, the way he humped himself 
along.” 

“He is a queer combination,” said the Ranger. 
“Feet like a bear, fights like a cat, and — did you 
know — in another way he is equipped like a skunk. 
When he wants to cache his surplus food supply, 
he pollutes it so that no creature but himself will 
touch it.” 

The boys told of the night a skunk visited camp. 

“Fll tell you something that will surprise you,” 
said the forest officer. “Skunks make good pets. 
Treat 'em right and they're as tame as kittens, when 
you catch 'em young. Good mousers, too.” 

“I'd hate to risk it.” 

“Well — of course you never want to put them on 
the defensive —. If ever you see a skunk in a trap, 
keep your distance! By the way, it's funny no 
wolverine ever tried to raid your camp. They are 
great thieves. As a rule you'll find that animals — 
in the wild state — have more respect for property 
rights than some people appear to have. ' But you 
see, the wolverine is a sort of scavenger-man. Of 
course if he can't find enough that way, he's not 
speedy enough to catch much for himself, (unless 
he drops on a deer from some tree), and he has to 
help himself where he can.” 

“That's funny,” mused Ralph. “Every creature 
seems to have some reason for being just what it is.” 

“I think that's what you'll find. Take trees, too, 
and plants, and birds — ” 


164 


LOST RIVER 


Tim listened wistfully. “Guess Pap'd be inter¬ 
ested in that,” he sighed. “Then maybe he'd see 
some sense to book learnin'.” A remark Ralph had 
heard before. 

The latter was as lively as Tim, now, in a pair of 
the Ranger's moccasins, with two thick pairs of 
woolen socks to pad his feet against stone bruise. 
“It's as good as going barefooted, only better,” he 
marveled. He was hardening his feet, under his 
host's advisement, by soaking them night and morn¬ 
ing in water in which a spoonful of alum was dis¬ 
solved, and then dusting the tender places with 
talcum powder. 

Lotor was also enjoying himself. Not content 
with carrying off a whole plateful of doughnuts, 
(walking on his hind legs, and hugging the dish with 
his forepaws), he made a raid on the molasses jug, 
with results that made it necessary to launder him, 
though he struggled violently and protested in a 
heartrending manner. 

“Do you know, boys,” the Ranger exclaimed one 
day, after they had hung their drenched footwear 
behind the stove to dry, “you two have shown 
yourselves uncommonly capable helpers, and I wish 
I could have you all summer. If what you say is 
true of the way you handled that line of back-fire 
(I'm going to ride up that way and investigate to¬ 
morrow), you've earned the gratitude of the Forest 
Service. If you hadn't had the brains to start your 
trench far enough back, and the patriotism and the 



“Walking on his hind legs and hugging the dish 

with his fore paws.” 















































TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 165 


courage to hold out to the end, that fire might be 
going yet!” 

“Then you don't think we started the fire?” asked 
Ralph. 

“ My boy, I certainly don't, — and I didn't. Only 
— it was my duty as a forest officer to find the 
offender. What I started to say was, have you ever 
thought of going into Forestry?” 

Ralph said he was preparing for college. 

“And your father could give you the full six years' 
forestry course, couldn’t he?” 

“I guess so.” 

“Well then, I'm going to ask him to let you study 
for it!” he declared. “And Tim, here, I wish he 
had a chance, too, — but he could go as far as I've 
gone without much more than high school, especially 
if he can get some practical experience summers, as 
he goes along. It's a great life! Only I've always 
wished I'd had a chance at the full training, so I 
could go on to something bigger.” He eyed Ralph 
wistfully. 

“Then your father's a man of influence, I judge 
from what you've said of his interests at Washington. 
I wish to goodness you'd get him to help with some 
of the things we are trying to put through.” The 
boys attesting their interest by their shining-eyed 
attention, he recounted many thrilling tales of the 
Service. 

He had started out among the giant forests of 
pines and spruce in the Colorado Rockies, where 


166 


LOST RIVER 


strange adventures had befallen him, out there^mong 
the lumberjacks and sheep-herders. 

He described that wildest and most romantic scen¬ 
ery in America, the giant trees of the coast of Oregon 
and Washington, the big trees of the Sequoia Red¬ 
woods, and the more open peaks and valleys of the 
California Sierras. 

“The first problem of the National Forests, of 
course, is fire protection/' he told them, “though 
there is always — especially in the West — a large 
amount of timber and grazing business for a ranger 
to attend to. 

“Sometimes there are timber thieves to run to 
earth.” Ralph pricked up his ears, for his father had 
lumber interests. “ Then every summer there are 
thousands of campers to keep the trails cleared and 
shelters built for. 

“By the way, did you boys see any signs up the 
Margalloway of yellow-top ?” and he showed them 
a specimen of the bark beetle. 

“Why, yes, I saw some of that when I was hunting 
mushrooms/' exclaimed Tim. The mushrooms, 
by the way, had been dried so that they would keep 
till the boys had a chance to dispose of them. 

“ I'll have to make a trip, I see, and clean that out. 
Wish you boys were going to stay on awhile! 
Well, as I was saying, it has been a romantic struggle 
to preserve the National Forests, but now that people 
have got to using them summers, perhaps there'll 
be less of this wholesale abuse of the public lands. 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 167 


Would you believe that I've been in pitched battles 
in my time?” 

“How so?” 

“You see, big timber operators would secure the 
services of dummy locators, who would take up 
lands on their homestead rights, then sell out for 
a nominal sum. That way, one man in California 
secured hundreds of thousands of acres of valuable 
timber.” 

“Fact?” Tim's eyes glittered angrily. “I'd like 
to cross his trail once! — if I was a ranger!” 

“ What'd you say the training is like ? ” asked Ralph. 
“ What d'you have to do to fit yourself?” 

“Why, as I said, it's a six-year college course, — 
two years of forestry on top of the regular thing, — 
if you want to go right on up the ladder. But 
there's some short courses a fellow can take, if he's 
only going to be a ranger,” turning to Tim. “ Myself, 
I worked my way, getting my practical experience 
through being ranger's assistant, fire outlook, forest 
guard, and the like, all of which gives you a great 
chance of studying the trees.” 

“But what did you do?” Ralph demanded. 

“ Oh, kept an eye out for injurious insects and tree 
diseases, scaled timber, and all sorts of things. 
Planted trees, too, where a forest cover was needed to 
protect a water course. Otherwise, the way the fires 
have been eating up our timber lands, we'd some day 
find ourselves a desert like parts of China, with no 
crops, and every one too poor to eat meat. But 


168 


LOST RIVER 


whatever you do, the great award is the chance to be 
in the open,” — an argument that had already begun 
to have renewed appeal to the lost voyagers. 

The next day the last of the line was completed 
and the Ranger was able to call up headquarters at 
Gorham. He was not surprised to learn that a party 
of fishermen had been apprehended for the careless 
starting of the forest fire. He also found that Ralph's 
father, after investigating every other possible route 
the boys might have taken, had decided to send Tim's 
father up the Margalloway in a canoe, at the same 
time appealing to the Supervisor, who had notified 
forest officials everywhere to search for a trace of 
their whereabouts. 

The boys were surprised to hear how worried their 
families had been. 

Mr. Merritt was in Bangor. The Ranger got him 
on long distance, and barely apprised him of Ralph's 
safety before voicing a plea to let the boy enter the 
service. 

“I should think you'd had enough of the woods, 
from all you've been through,” the rich man quizzed 
his son, after the first greetings had been exchanged. 
(They were running up a fearful toll charge.) “So 
you really want to go into lumber from that end? 
There is certainly a chance for some big patriotic 
service.” 

“I'd give anything to, Dad. This thing has just 
spoiled me for city life. Then I could keep my 
'coon.” 


TWO BOYS IN THE BIG WOODS 169 

Mr. Merritt’s hearty laugh rang over the wires. 
“That certainly is an inducement.” 

“Dad, I’m twenty pounds nearer normal weight. 
And Tim has gained half as much as I’ve lost.” 
“Inducement number two!” 

“Say, Dad, I wish — ” 

“What?” 

“I — I wish —you’d send Tim to college, too. 
He wants to enter the service when I do, and —” 
“That’s the very idea!” shouted Mr. Merritt. 
“That’s just what I’ll do! I’ve been wondering 
how I could thank him for the way he has taken care 
of you.” What more he might have said was never 
known, as Ralph’s war whoop effectually drowned it 
out. 











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